Stargate Atlantis: Left Behind
by Chevron Nine Will Not Lock
Summary: This story begins 10,000 years before the events in the Stargate Atlantis episode 'Rising'. It revolves around the character Nikal, a Lantean leader specialising in science. He is forced to take charge of the remaining citizens of the Lantean Domain who struggle to survive in the face of an undefeatable enemy with nowhere safe to go.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

In the final days of the Lantean-Wraith war the City Ship Atlantis floats under siege on the surface of the planet Lantea, in orbit is a massive fleet of Wraith Hive Ships and Cruisers are firing relentlessly on Atlantis. The fleet entered the system after totally obliterating the systems defence countermeasures, and the majority of the Lantean Fleet in that sector of the Galaxy.

* * *

 **Lantea.**

Inside Atlantis behind the protection of the city's powerful shield the Council of Atlantis meet to discuss options. One of the Lantean's controversial and outspoken scientists, Janus, is in a heated session of the Council. "I informed this Council weeks ago if we were to submerge the city we would reduce the stress the shields are under from the constant bombardment, as you can see on this simulation the plasma bolts the Wraith vessels are firing will dissipate in the water well before reaching the shield perimeter." Behind him a screen shows a simulation of Atlantis submerged as plasma bolts dissipate in the water. "As it stands we have been burning out the shield emitters; and the Potentia while near full charge, all three will eventually be depleted under the strain. The docking equipment is already on the ocean floor from our deep sea drilling projects, and I have already loaded the subroutines into the main database. I must recommend once again that submerging the city is the only viable option to safeguard the future of Atlantis." Janus finishes, emphasising on the future. He resumes his seat, and the screen deactivates.

Moros the High Councillor of the Council of Atlantis, the leader of the Lantean Domain, sits patiently considering Janus's plan, looking at the other three councillors seated in the council room. Melia, his second, bows her head in agreement to Janus' plan, quickly followed by the other two.

Facing Janus, Moros speaks up. "With the loss of the Domain's major industrial power bases, we have been left without the capabilities to replace many of the technological components that we take for granted. Janus, while previous experience has taught us to be extremely cautious with your radical plans and ideas; at this time there is no other choice. I hereby order you to immediately submerge the city." Looking away from Janus he faces Melia, "Melia, contact the Lantean ships on a secure subspace channel; inform them of our plan to submerge the city, and that they have to enter the ocean to reach us."

Melia straightened and looked back at Moros, "Would it not be safer for the warships and the Narvi to change course to a planet with a Stargate and let the crew travel to Atlantis via the gate network instead? Or even have the Narvi divert to the Galactic Core Outpost, let the warships approach the planet they are the only ones with enough fire power to survive the firefight and the landing procedures."

Before Melia could continue Moros interrupted, "No." he said in a frustrated tone, "The Narvi is a Lantean ship, even though it's a transport ship, its technology is far superior to the inferior Wraith biotechnology, and it will survive the trip. Under no circumstances is anyone to inform incoming ships to avoid Atlantis, they must get here, to prepare for the transition. This council is now adjourned." Moros stands and quickly walks out of the room.

Melia looks around at the other councillors, seeing the concerned looks she elaborates on the transition. "You must be wondering what Moros means when he says the transition… we are planning to evacuate the Pegasus Galaxy, to leave this long and terrible war behind and start anew on Terra." Melia stops for a moment to let the other councillor's time to process this new information.

A representative from one of the few remaining Lantean outposts, Nikal, stands and speaks to the council. "How do you expect all of us to get to Terra? Atlantis could make it there if there was not a fleet in orbit, its stardrive has an integrated intergalactic hyperdrive; but the rest of our fleet cannot make the journey with their interstellar variant. We would be leaving the remnants of our fleet behind or stuck in the void if their hyperdrives were to fail." Nikal would have continued but Melia stands up interrupting him.

"That is enough Archon Nikal! Moros did not come to this decision lightly." Melia stopped for a moment realising that she raised her voice, regaining her composure. "Nikal, in the beginning I too was shocked that Moros was considering this, then I looked back over the centuries this war has been waged the Wraith have left us completely defenceless, we had the advantages over them yet through our carelessness and over dependence on our technology we lost. The long term survival of the Lantean civilisation can no longer be achieved here in the Pegasus Galaxy; if we had the resources and the time we could have sent scouts the other nearby galaxies and satellite galaxies and start a new Lantean Empire there, but we don't. What we can do now is start a new life in Avalon, and starting on Terra we can attempt to rebuild our civilisation on the Alteran's former capital planet. This is in the hopes that one day we will return to this galaxy and take back what was ours!"

The other Councillors all looked towards Melia, nodding in silent support for the evacuation of Pegasus. Nikal sat shocked that the other councillors would all agree that evacuating the Pegasus was in their best interests. Their blatant disregard for the human populations still in Pegasus who are suffering at the hands of the Wraith, left Nikal wondering what would be left to come back to.

Using what little remained of his composure he replied to the council. "I see this is a decision that cannot be undone or fought against by the remaining outposts and colony worlds. I will inform the regional council at Galactic Core. When will the other outposts be informed of this decision?"

Melia faced Nikal. "They will be informed once the transport vessel Narvi, and warships arrive here." She looks away not focusing on any of the councillors. "If anyone needs me I will be in the Holographic interface room, recording a message to place into the database. A condensed history if you will about our time in Pegasus, I'm putting it in there for future generations, in the event the Lanteans return, who may look back and would disagree with the decision we have reached."

Nikal collected his data pads and small data crystals placing them in his pack. He stands up and abruptly leaves the other councillors in the room. Making his way down the main stairs towards the Stargate, he stopped for a moment looking at the circular device; he thought about the people out in the galaxy who look at the same device on their planets hoping for the 'Ancestors' to help save them but are faced with an enemy that would consume them alive instead. It was a cruel fate, having the technology to help these people but not being able to help because resources were low thanks to the war of attrition the Wraith were fighting.

Janus walks out of the council chamber and stands next to Nikal on the main stairs, "It is a remarkable device the Stargate, travelling to other worlds in a matter of seconds. I'll let you on to a little secret; I have developed a new drive system that in theory would jump a ship anywhere in the local galactic cluster in a matter of seconds. In theory we could jump Atlantis to Terra in mere moments, which were one of the reasons I was allowed to integrate the system into the stardrive; of course it is untested and highly dangerous. I'm only telling you this because you are the only one in the city that I can trust with my research and radical ideas. I assume you have installed the new hyperdrive modifications I sent you last week?" Janus asks.

Nikal smiles, "It's good to know that I am still a trusted confidant of yours. A ship that could jump anywhere in the local universe, that would change the way we explore space or fight enemies. But a system such as that does sound highly dangerous, that's why the Stargate's are large rings; it's easier to create and maintain a stable wormhole over long distances. And yes the drive modifications you proposed have been integrated into the hyperdrive array; preliminary simulations suggest that my ship's speed is on par or even better than the stardrive output for the city ships. I must thank you again your ideas and research have saved me years of work. If you are not evacuating with the first groups, I would like to extend you the opportunity to come to Galactic Core to help me with the finishing touches, I would prefer to take the ship with me. There is no way I'm leaving it behind to be scavenged." Nikal says slightly frustrated.

"I appreciate the offer, and I would accept but there is something you need to know." Janus moves closer to Nikal and reduces his voice to a whisper. "The council is not planning to inform the off world outposts, once the Narvi and the Warships arrive he plans to evacuate the city only. He does not want to tip off the Wraith; they could redouble their efforts to take this city especially with it being unoccupied. But I have a plan to help your survival, take the Atlantis database with you to Galactic Core, and install it on your ship. You will find under the restricted section a series of notes from me. Take this crystal it is the authorisation codes to access my secure files in that section." Janus hands Nikal a flat rectangular control crystal. "Go to the computer lab, in storage cupboard five, you will find four large crystals. Use them to copy the entire Atlantis database. I must go there are some other preparations I need to do. Good Luck my friend." Janus abruptly leaves; he walks through the control room to take the rear stairs.

Nikal ponders on the new information he has been given, the council had known for weeks that it's planning to leave a large percentage of its citizens behind, and for what, to become food for the Wraith? Was I meant to even find out about this plan to leave Pegasus? There were too many questions and not enough answers. He looks past the Stargate and out the window to the great spires of Atlantis; Nikal makes the decision to follow Janus' advice. A technician in the command centre sees Nikal on the staircase; she approaches the dialling device and begins entering the symbols for the Galactic Core Outpost. As the chevrons on the Stargate light up Nikal snaps out of his thoughts and shouts out to the technician, "Abort the dialling sequence." He makes his way to the transporter booth on the gate operations level, approaching the door it slides silently opens with the destination selector opening automatically. Selecting the lower levels of the same tower he is instantly transported to a similar booth.

Walking at a brisk pace he reached the Computer Core Lab, the doorway sensors detect the activation gene in his DNA, and automatically opens for him; he walks to a nearby bench and puts his pack down. Going back to the doorway he waves his hand over the door control sealing and securing the lab. Inside a cupboard he grabs a large data crystal which he plugs into an adapter on a nearby console, the console springs to life as its lights turn on and a screen lights up, showing information about the status of the software and the general accessible information. Nikal enters his access code into the console which is followed by the other consoles in the room activating.

At Galactic Core, Nikal is the lead scientist working on the next generation of star ships designed solely to fight the Wraith. This meant that he had mostly unrestricted access to the Atlantis Database and the immerse knowledge on Alteran star ship design as well as numerous designs from other space capable species that had been discovered over the millennia. He begins downloading the files from the database; he starts with the restricted section. This entire section is highly encrypted which means Nikal is unsure what he is taking. He moves on copying the rest of the database, focusing mainly on technical data and astronomical data. Realising that the first crystal he had inserted has reached maximum capacity, he carefully disconnected it and placed it inside his pack. Finding that he had transferred approximately twenty-five percent of the Atlantis Database he returned to the cupboard to collect three more crystals. He resumes the transfer process for the rest of the database; he collects these crystals placing them in his pack. Nikal erases the activity log and places the lab into standby; returning to the transporter booth he selects the top of the tower and makes his way to the Stargate.

Entering the gate room he shouts out loudly at the technician, "You! Dial the gate to Galactic Core immediately." The technician shocked at his sudden appearance and slight hostility from Nikal, the technician approaches the dialling device and quickly enters the seven symbol address. The chevrons on the Stargate light up and an unstable vortex forms and is pulled back before settling back into the ring forming a vertical puddle. Nikal steps through the puddle.

* * *

 **Galactic Core Outpost**

On a world that has been untouched by the war with the Wraith, the Lantean outpost, Galactic Core, sits in a system located deep in the centre of the Pegasus Galaxy. This particular system had never been visited by the Wraith due to its location near the centre of the galaxy. Ships travelling to Galactic Core must travel through specific mapped out corridors while in hyperspace due to naturally occurring subspace interference caused by its position. The Lanteans found this world by accident while testing the first generation Aurora Class science vessels, when an overload in the hyperdrive propelled the ship further than anticipated. Since the chance discovery the Lanteans built an outpost on this world, knowing that the Wraith's inferior sensor and hyperspace technology would mean they could hide in plain sight. Ships not travelling within the specific corridors of space are immediately destroyed when attempting to enter or exit a hyperspace window.

In the command centre high above the outpost a technician is sitting at a console monitoring the primary systems when one of the screens shows the Stargate activating. Touching the console in front of him, he mentally commands it to open a comm link to Stargate Central, "Incoming wormhole. Defence teams to high alert. Stargate shield activated" An alarm begins sounding in the main complex.

At ground level a blue crystal on a tall, sleek obelisk aluminates and the defence team materialise near the Stargate, they immediately take up positions to defend the outpost.

Meanwhile the technician queries the Stargate Network for the origin of the wormhole and sees that it is from Atlantis, he opens a comm channel to the defence teams. "Defence team to active standby, authorised wormhole."

The symbols aluminate around the inner track, when they reach the top of the gate activates, however the unstable vortex doesn't form as its being stopped by the shield. Once the wormhole establishes the shield drops, causing the defence team to raise their energy weapons towards the Stargate.

Nikal emerges from the wormhole to a cool dark night, he left Atlantis late in the morning. His eyes take a moment to adjust to the reduced light around the Stargate. He comes to a stop when he sees the defence team aiming energy rifles at him. "Archon Nikal. Portal Authorisation Delta-5-Gamma. Look, I really don't have time for this." Nikal pulls out a small, flat, octagonal crystal and holds it up. Behind him the Stargate deactivates, the defence team lowers their energy weapons and Nikal walks past silently cursing the Chief Archon's new security protocols which in his opinion are an overreaction to all authorised off world travellers.

After the slight delay from the defence team at the gate, Nikal approaches the transport obelisk and enters coordinates for the Glass Tower; the Galactic Core main administrations building. The blue crystal glows brightly as Nikal is transported away; he materialises at a similar obelisk before moving off to his office.

He enters his office, which is a large space for him but over the years he managed to fill his office with various knick-knacks, and technical components. Setting his pack on sofa, he gets a sweet drink from the food synthesiser and sits behind his desk to compose a message to the Galactic Core Leadership. *I'm calling an emergency session of the council. Please be in the council chamber within the next half hour. - Nikal* He sends the message, and immediately gets responses from many of the members in the upper echelons in the leadership. Nikal slouched in his chair and brings up the schematics for his ship, deciding that it's best to use the next half hour efficiently. He considers running a test on the new ship systems the following day and schedules it with the outpost's control centre.

Taking a sip from his sweet beverage he puts it down and retrieves the pack he brought from Atlantis. Looking at the four data crystals he realises the implications that stealing a copy of the Atlantis Database would have if he were to be recalled to Atlantis; 'stripped of rank and position... most likely, exile from the planets within the remnants of the Lantean Domain… quite the possibility.' He snaps out of his thoughts when he hears the door chime, "Come in please." He says.

The door slides open with a hiss and he sees that it is his colleague and close friend Joja. The young, short woman walks in and the door slides closed behind her, she smiles at Nikal as she enters but sees him slumped in his chair. "Why have you called an emergency session of the council? What is happening?" she asks genuinely concerned.

Nikal takes a deep breath and sighs, "As you know I have been on Atlantis for the last few days with the council, we were discussing mainly the war effort and how to keep our last remaining planets under our control secure, the regional council needs to know the decision the Council of Atlantis have reached." Joja raises an eyebrow and he continues, "They have voted to follow High Councillor Moros' plan to evacuate the Pegasus Galaxy of all Lantean citizens and to travel to Terra."

Joja gasps, "Wha… What? We have been forbidden to leave this galaxy, the Alterans instructed the first Lanteans about this before they ascended." She stops for a moment to process some of the thoughts going through her mind. "What about the human populations? Will we be evacuating them to safety?"

Nikal shakes his head; getting up he moves towards the window at the rear of his office. Looking out he sees the small quiet metropolis, being night time all the nearby buildings are lit with light. "No, the humans are staying here… utterly defenceless. I objected to this, but the other councillors have been cowering behind their shield for too long and voted to leave, the humans were not even brought up. Trust me when I say that the evacuation is not the worst thing I learnt while on Atlantis." He sighs as he moves back to his desk, "Let's walk to the council chambers together, I need to clear my head a little before the meeting starts."

He offers Joja his hand which she takes and gives a squeeze, "I think that is a great idea." They leave the office and make their way to the council chambers, on their way their Joja begins to tell Nikal what has been happening over the few days he was off world.

Eight levels up they continue chatting about events in their lives, they walk in to find all the Archons, councillors and other high level members already in the room. "Someone should have sent a message that everyone was ready." Nikal jokingly said to Joja.

Tyros the Chief Archon of the Galactic Core Regional Council stands, "I hereby call this emergency session of the council open." Tyros yawns, then in a mocking tone, "Archon Nikal, I know that on Atlantis it is the middle of the day, but here at Galactic Core it's not and we like to get our rest," He laughs a booming laugh before continuing. "Now Nikal if you could please explain the reason for this incredibly late meeting?"

Nikal decided not to take his usual seat on the high council desk, preferring to stand in front of the Chief Archon. "My apologies, but this news could not wait till morning," he turns to face the assembled group who have taken their seats in the audience chamber. "I have recently arrived from Atlantis with news. The Council of Atlantis has informed me of their intention to evacuate all Lantean citizens from this galaxy via the Stargate on Atlantis to start a new life in Avalon."

The silence in the chamber erupts into conversations and yelling, Nikal raises his hands up pleading for order. He looks towards Tyros who nodded in understanding, "ORDER, I WILL HAVE ORDER IN THIS CHAMBER!" He yells out.

Silence once again falls on the room, Nikal continues, "I know this is shocking, I personally do not want to leave, what little we have left is here in this galaxy, we cannot take our ships and big equipment with us to Avalon, the ships are not fast enough and the equipment is too large to fit in the Stargate. If we left we would have to start again with nothing. The council is meant to officially inform us of the evacuation once the transport ship Narvi breaks through the blockade around Lantea and arrives at Atlantis.

However this will not happen, I have been informed by a member of the Council that there is no plan to inform the outposts and colonies. They are abandoning us to the Wraith." Nikal pulls out a small computing device out of one of his jacket pockets and taps on the screen. "I have sent all of you a brief report on the situation. At this stage I recommend we reconvene after attempting to contact Atlantis and the Council." He faces Tyros and sees that he has gone pale, nodding to him Nikal walks off the dais.

The Chief Archon speaks up to the assembled group. "As the highest ranking official on this base and quite likely left in this galaxy I will take over duties as High Councillor of the Lantean Domain. This I do as a temporary action and will relinquish the Councillorship when this current conflict ends. This emergency session is now closed, further updates will e provided as they come in." Tyros finished.

Joja meets up with Nikal at the side of the stage, "The Commander would like a moment of your time Nik."

Nikal nods, "Ok, tell her to meet me in my office I have a few things I need to do for later today." Joja walks off to inform the Commander and Nikal makes his way to the nearest transport booth.

Walking into his office he orders a hot caffeinated beverage from the food synthesiser. Moving towards a mirror on the wall next to the window he looks at himself. He notices his skin is a paler brown than usual, before noticing a few grey hairs in his black hair. Thinking to him, 'Hmm, a few greys are nothing if we have no future.' He approaches his desk and takes a seat. He starts typing on his computer connecting it to his experimental ship which is docked nearby the outpost, once the connection is established a small holographic emitter descends from the ceiling and activates. The room darkens as a star map of the galaxy forms; the map rapidly zooms in on the planet the Galactic Core Outpost resides on.

Nikal decides to cut the theatrics, "Ship. End this presentation. Now! I do not have time for it." The light show fades away and the ships avatar forms, a young, slim man appears with long dark hair and very short facial hair, it is wearing the standard white Lantean defence force uniform.

"I apologise, but you programmed this into my data matrix, it is to be shown anytime I am interfaced outside the ship, or in front of young children."

Nikal cuts him off, "Yes, yes. I forgot that I wrote this into your program, please isolate those protocols and deactivate them till further notice; now run diagnostics on all ship systems, I need the results before tomorrow's scheduled test." The holographic avatar nods and fades away.

The door chime goes off, "Come in please." Nikal says as he pushes back on his floating chair, he stands as Rhea, Galactic Core's Commander of the defence force walks in. "Archon Nikal, the news you have brought to our attention is dire. I need to know if you are given the opportunity to leave this galaxy with the others will you, or are you going to stay here?" Nikal is surprised at Rhea's bluntness; he offers her a seat in front of the desk which she takes.

Nikal sits down and returns the bluntness, "I am staying! I have my prototype ship which was meant to help the turn the tide of the war, even though it's on the verge of completion, its systems have not been fully tested. I would not like to see us stranded in the void if the hyperdrives were to fail, there is no way I am going to leave it behind or simply destroy it. In hindsight I see the Videum Project was just another pawn from the council to create a faster fleet to evacuate this galaxy."

Commander Rhea nods, "Good, I'm not leaving either, I would be a commander without a fleet. To my knowledge there is no infrastructure in Avalon that would have survived this long to restart star ship construction…" Nikal makes a mental note to query the stolen copy of the Atlantis Database for information about early settlements in the Pegasus Galaxy. "… I would be more useful here, even though it is to fight a losing war." Rhea finishes, Nikal nods in understanding.

The internal communication system chimes, "Control to Archon Nikal, you have a priority communication from Atlantis." The communications officer says. Nikal replies, "I'm in my office, please route it here." He apologises to Rhea, as the holographic system in his office activates and an image of Janus appears, in the background the evacuation alarm is sounding. "Nikal I am glad that I got a hold of you." Janus says in a hurry.

"Is there something wrong Janus? Did the Narvi arrive safely?" Nikal asks concerned about the citizens aboard.

"I'm afraid that the Narvi was destroyed the moment they tried approaching the planet. But I have even more tragic news, the Council of Atlantis have decided to leave immediately… as we speak the city is sitting at the bottom of the ocean and we have begun evacuating the city's inhabitants in groups. The outposts and colony planets have still not been told of this decision and the council have officially counted them as lost and are willing to abandon them. Right now I and several other high ranking technicians are in the process of securing Atlantis."

Janus would have continued but is interrupted by Commander Rhea, "Councillor Janus, this is Commander Rhea, what do you mean when you say securing Atlantis?" Rhea asks formally.

"Ah. Commander Rhea, always a pleasure." He smirks and then continues, "The Atlantis Stargate has been programmed to reject all wormholes that originate in this galaxy. I'm truly sorry; I do not have the time to override the lockouts before I am forced to leave. You will not be able to reach Atlantis via ship; I have remodulated the shield frequencies to accommodate for more efficient power usage, for the Caretaker I am leaving behind." He stops for a moment.

Nikal and Rhea look at each other, "What Caretaker?" Nikal asks.

Janus lets out a breath, "There is not enough time to explain, I will send you a few files about the situation. I need you to contact the other warships that were approaching Lantea; they stopped the moment the Narvi was destroyed. You can recall them; they could help you at Galactic Core."

Rhea speaks up this time, "What would they help with?"

Janus's face goes pale, "There is a massive Wraith Fleet heading to Galactic Core, I assumed your long range sensors picked them up?"

Rhea immediately leaves running through the hologram, she makes her way towards the transport booth to get to the command centre.

* * *

Meanwhile in the command Centre of the outpost a group of technicians is busy monitoring the various systems when one of the consoles beeps. "Hmm. Looks like the long range sensors have picked something up. I'm not sure what it is but the computer is saying it's a major distortion in the hyper subspace layer." said technician Jad.

Another technician gets up and looks over the sensor readings, "It could have been a glitch in the sensors; the amount of interference in this area does bring the sensor resolution down. Given the position of the alert, if it were a ship then it would be torn apart the moment they exit hyperspace, continue running scans just to be sure." The supervising technician says before returning to his seat at another console.

* * *

Nikal is shocked at the prospect of having a Wraith fleet so close to the planet. "How is it possible for the Wraith to even know about this world? The whole point we established this base was that it was virtually impossible for the Wraith to find us." Nikal begins pacing back and forth in front of his desk. The Janus hologram stands still but moves his head left and right looking at Nikal.

Janus nods. "The logs here indicate that someone on Atlantis sent an unsecure wide band subspace transmission with the coordinates for Galactic Core as well as the Stargate address. Anyone in Pegasus with an advance enough subspace communications array would have picked up the message. From the way it was composed I assume it was in a bid to attempt to buy time, for our evacuation. As we speak three quarters of the Wraith fleet here in the Lantean System have left, computer projections show that they are on a direct course for Galactic Core most likely as a second front.

I cannot contact the two Aurora class battlecruisers that have stopped the moment the Narvi was destroyed, I recommend you contact them, they could be some help with the fighting and possible evacuations." The holographic transmission fades, before being restored, Janus continues, "I believe the technicians are shutting down the long range subspace communications system, I must go. Once again I am truly sorry for this; I too have invested so much in this galaxy, all the secret outposts and abandoned projects I will never see them again. Nikal do not worry about Atlantis, it will survive for thousands of years to come. There is a caretaker in place to look after Atlantis."

Nikal interrupts Janus, "Wait, what caretaker? What do you mean?" His questions go unanswered as the hologram fades away. Moments later his console beeps informing him of a new subspace message, he opens it and finds a report about Atlantis' mysterious caretaker, a time travelling human. Nikal takes a moment to sit and lets the information sink in.

He touches the comm device on his collar and contacts Joja, "Nikal to Joja."

After a few moments a response comes through, "Joja here, what's up Nik?"

Nikal takes a quick breath, "I need your exemplary piloting skills, meet me in Cargo Bay Eight in the next fifteen minutes."

After a short delay she replies, "I just need to finish up a few things, but I will be there. See you soon." The comm channel closes automatically and Nikal taps his comm badge to deactivate it.

Arriving in the cargo bay Nikal walks towards a computer console placed left of the door facing out to the cargo bay, the oval like console automatically activates as approaches it. He touches the crystal controls, a small holographic display activates and he begins working the controls. In front of him several dozen shipping creates and equipment pieces dematerialise, being transported away to another hanger bay. He continues typing on the console in the now empty bay, other shipping creates materialise along with large pieces of equipment ranging from medical devices to ship components.

Behind him the large doors open and Joja walks in, "Nikal what do you need… gosh that's a lot of cargo. Why is a highly respected scientist such as you doing the menial task of inventory?"

She jokingly laughs while walking towards Nikal, he replies "Very funny Joja but this is rather serious, I'm in the process of finding as much equipment that I feel my ship will need in the foreseeable future."

Joja stops Nikal typing commands into the console and makes him face her, "What are you saying Nik?"

He sighs "I am highly doubtful that this outpost and the surrounding city will survive the coming battle, everything you see before you is what I have so far sourced from all over the base. I'm loading as much as I can take…" taking a breath he continues "…ugh, we have lost so much. Now with Atlantis effectively gone we need to preserve as much of our technology, most of these devices we can no longer create without the Domain's factories."

He notices Joja's face go pale, "Are you running Nikal?!" She bluntly asks him in an angry tone, he is taken aback with the accusation.

"I will never run! But if the base is lost… we need contingencies in the event something happens here and we can no longer return." He responded immediately. He reaches for one of her hands and holds it, "The reason I called you here is to help me with this, I need to shuttle the cargo to my ship where its short range transporters can pick them up; if you feel that I'm making the wrong choice then I'll have to do it myself." He lets go of her hands and faces the console placing one hand on the console he uses his mind to open the cargo bay doors. Moving off he walks to one of the large shuttles in the bay quickly followed by Joja. Joja takes the pilots seat, Nikal sits next to her controlling the tractor beam and power regulation systems. They spend the next few hours travelling back and forth between the cargo bay and the experimental ship.

* * *

In the command centre Commander Rhea is busy preparing the outpost for the approaching battle. "Technician Jad, let's go over the sensor analysis you picked up earlier. She says staying in a calm manner.

"Aaahhh, so nothing drastic has changed since our original scans earlier, of course the objects which we have now identified as Wraith ships of varying designs are closer. We are only now getting clearer readings from the earlier scans as we have retuned the sensors to a higher resolution."

Rhea interrupts, "Why weren't the sensors at a higher resolution in the beginning?"

Jad continues, "Well before the time of the original detection we were ordered by Chief Archon Tyros to transfer a large percentage of our scanning capabilities to him for his personal experiments that he is apparently running. This left us without the necessary resolution to identify the ships currently in hyperspace, this coupled with the interference around the Galactic Core system it would have been impossible to get accurate readings. Either way we still would have not been able to determine what was out there until it was closer." He finishes, Rhea nods and he resumes his seat around the holographic situation table.

Rhea contemplates this new information, standing up she taps the comm device on the collar of her white uniform. "This is Commander Rhea; I want a security team to bring Chief Archon Tyros to the Command Centre immediately." Tapping the comm device again she deactivates it, under her breath she mutters "First the leader of an outpost now the leader of the tatters of the Lantean Domain, that incompetent fool."

With Jad being within earshot he responds, "Hear. Hear."

Rhea smiles for a brief moment, she gets up and walks to the small balcony overlooking the well of the command centre. On the railing is a small computer terminal, the crystals light up as she approaches and a small holographic display begins showing data about the outposts various systems. Placing both hands on the terminal she mentally clears the screen and brings up the communications protocols, she opens a link to the entire Galactic Core Outpost, the citizens out in the city and the ships out in orbit. "Attention all personnel this is Commander Rhea, minutes ago we found out that a massive Wraith fleet is on its way to this… our world. Some may have heard the rumours that Atlantis has been evacuated… unfortunately this is true. Our brothers and sisters have fled this galaxy thus leaving us to fend for ourselves. I request that citizens in the outer city blocks and industrial zones please leave your work, return home, pack a few items and calmly enter your nearest safe zone.

Our defence and offensive systems should be adequate to hold back the coming fleet. I plan to defend this base and repel those who mean to attack us but in a safe and sane manner.

As a Commander in service for the Lantean Defence Force during war time I hereby am taking charge of this outpost, I will order an evacuation under extreme circumstances, if the assessment that this outpost will fall I will be sure to make certain that every soul on this planet leaves be that by transport vessel, or the Stargate. At this moment the Stargate is now under complete lockdown. All ships that are able to fight please prepare and report in to the Command Centre. Further updates will be provided as the come in. Rhea out. **

Rhea touches one of the crystal controls on the terminal, in the background alert klaxons begin to sound. The civilian personnel in the Command Centre leave their posts and make their way to the safe zones. Rhea moves back to the holographic projection table now showing the Galactic Core planet with the ships in orbit moving into defensive positions.

* * *

Nikal making the twentieth and final trip to his ship with Joja, they are sitting in silence after hearing Rhea's speech over the shuttle's comm systems. Joja breaks the silence, "Nik, why wouldn't we be evacuating? I mean even if it's just the unnecessary personnel, there is still the Capricornia outpost, the evacuees can wait out the attack there…" she stops and sighs, "… ugh we have suffered one command decision failure after another especially since Tyros became the Chief Archon here."

Nikal nods and speaks up "This is something a lot of people don't want to accept… but the Lantean race is an arrogant one. We were advanced well beyond our means, and given the keys to a kingdom by the Alterans and what have we done as a race? We tried to emulate our creators; we are now trying to follow in their footsteps by ascending to escape this war. I know I'm a small voice when to this assessment…if we come out of this alive I feel that we need to be the voices of change, we are so few now that the Lantean race cannot continue if we as a people cannot adapt to these circumstances."

Joja chuckles, Nikal looks at her slightly frowning. "What?" he says.

"Nice speech." Joja immediately smiles.

"With you by my side we could push for change and accomplish so much, but one step at a time." Nikal finishes, as he pushes one of the buttons on the control console a comm link with his ship opens. "Ship. Initiate transport cycle twenty." Below the shuttle several large containers disappear, while inside the shuttle all the smaller crates also disappear. Nikal continues to consult with the ship, "I need a full systems report."

The heads up display activates showing the ship; the avatar begins his report "Primary systems; life support and propulsion are operating at one hundred percent. Primary weapon arrays and shields appear to be operating at one hundred percent, although thorough testing is recommended. Cargo bays one through eight are at currently at capacity, drone weapons have arrived and all reserve holds are fully stocked. However diagnostics show a variance in several of the hyperdrive induction arrays, and the shield systems appear to be drawing less than optimum power from the defensive system reserves. I must inform you that with the shakedown cruise cancelled the diagnostics will not be able to determine the exact number of actual or possible faults within the various systems that would have been identified if the tests were run." The ship relays crisply.

Nikal sits back in his seat worried, he grows concerned that the ship could fail at a critical moment. He pushes the thoughts aside to worry about the coming crisis. Closing the comm link he faces Joja to instruct her to head back to the main complex. The shuttle banks heavily to the left returning to the base, the occupants don't feel the sudden change in direction or speed with the inertial dampeners active.

As they approach the base Joja contacts the Command Centre, "Shuttle 2-1-8 to GC Command Centre, requesting clearance to dock in shuttle bay twelve."

She waits for a reply from the base, moments later a female technician replies, "Shuttle 2-1-8 please reduce speed and stand by for landing instructions." In the background of the comm link they hear Commander Rhea issuing orders for the defence fighters to take off, the technician continues "Be advised that defence fighters are embarking from all shuttle bays, change course and land in shuttle bay one, a highlighted course is being uploaded to your nav-conn system."

Joja prepares to close the comm link, "Understood, course received, Shuttle 2-1-8 out." She closes the link. The shuttle descends, in the distance hundreds of objects lift off from the surface from several of the shuttle bays. These fighters look similar to the gate ship variant with the exception for wings integrated into the drive pods, stronger shields, and smaller plasma weapons along with a larger compliment of drones with ten per ship. Half of the fighters engage their sub-light drives and ascend rapidly; others begin patrols of the outpost.

Their shuttle approaches shuttle bay one located near the Glass Tower, they descend into the underground bay, the drive pods retract slightly into the body as the back hatch slides open and a small ramp extends. They leave and walk towards the exit then on to the transport lifts on their level. Nikal waves his hand over the elevator control calling for it to stop; he notices the commotion around him with personnel running about either getting to the safe zones or to their assigned defensive positions.

Joja notices this too, "I am starting to feel that your over the top preparation may not be so crazy after all." She says. The lift doors open and they get in.

"Command Centre level five." Nikal says aloud instructing the lift, to Joja he replies "It is nice you have so much faith in my planning." They both chuckle as the doors close; the lift begins speeding up as it quickly ascends from the extensive underground facilities up into the main lift shaft of the Glass Tower.

* * *

At Stargate Central the transport obelisk activates depositing Chief Archon Tyros. He looks around not realising that the security contingent had been tripled. Since he heard that Commander Rhea had ordered that he was to be apprehended for questioning he immediately left his office and made his way to the nearest maintenance hatch on the wall around the corner from his office, and began to make his way down the building through the tunnels. He looks at all of them nodding; he begins to wonder if they have been alerted to the Commander's orders to apprehend him for questioning. Walking calmly towards the podium dialling device in front of the Stargate, he is abruptly stopped by one of the security team. "I apologise Sir, but while we are under security lockdown all travel through the Stargate has now been suspended."

Tyros is shocked that a minor security guard is stopping him from his escape route, his plan was to travel to another planet away from the coming battle, he was not willing to risk staying here to lose his life. He takes a few steps back from the guard to re-establish his personal space, straightening up he glares at the guard, "Stand down! I'm giving you a direct order to step aside and allow me free access to the dialling device; if you all must know I am trying to get assistance from our other outposts. I have Commander Rhea's approval to travel to them to gain support. Concordia for instance has more personnel that can help us. Now you and your security detachment will vacate this area." Tyros said confidently.

The guards all looked to the leader of their team, who gives them a nod to stand down. They slowly move away Tyros walks to the dialling device and begins touching the symbols for an address he knows would be a safe harbour. The leader of the security detachment not entirely convinced with Tyros' intentions taps his comm device and attempts to directly contact Commander Rhea. As Tyros touches the fifth symbol the dialling device goes blank as well as the chevrons on the Stargate. Moments later the symbols illuminate in a clockwise direction lighting the chevrons as they pass.

The security team leaps into action one roughly pulls Tyros away from the dialling device, as the leader of the security team contacts the Command Centre. "Stargate Central to Command Centre, there's an incoming wormhole, activate the portal shield." He says quickly, he reaches for his energy weapon and aims it at the Stargate. Within seconds the wormhole establishes with the unstable vortex shooting out only to be pulled back as the event horizon forms, the shield activates blocking any inbound traveller who tries to reach Galactic Core.

The leader of the security contingent taps his comm device, "This is Specialist Matthel at Stargate Central, to Command Centre. Request priority alpha communications link with G-C Commander." In the background something hits the gate shield.

"Stand by Specialist." Is the response he gets from the Command Centre, removing the comm device from his uniform jacket and placing it on his ear it automatically changes the audio from loud to a quieter setting thus making the conversation private.

"This is Commander Rhea, Specialist Matthel good job at the Stargate." Rhea began.

"Thank you Commander, but I am not calling to be praised. We have a situation down here that does not revolve around the possible Wraith incursion attempt. Moments before the Stargate activated the Chief Archon attempted to activate the gate to travel off world. He claims that he was going to get reinforcements from Concordia, but the symbols he began entering were not the same." Matthel replies.

"Detain him, if he resists stun him then bring him here. I'll send someone down to deal with the Stargate. Rhea out." She terminates the connection from her end.

Specialist Matthel taps his comm device closing the connection, placing the device back on his armour. He reaches for the energy pistol holstered on his right leg, the clear crystal in the rod shaped device begins to glow a light blue colour as he mentally instructs it to be set to stun. Approaching Tyros he does not aim the energy pistol out of respect, "Chief Archon, if you would please accompany these security members; Commander Rhea would like to talk to you."

As two of the security team approach the Chief Archon, he darts back and runs to the transport obelisk. Tyros makes it five strides before Matthel fires his weapon twice in his back, he collapses to the ground heavily stunned. "Pick that up, and drag it to the commander." Matthel says to two of his security team. Matthel being one of the many in the defence force who's disdain towards the current leader of the outpost is unparalleled. The security team picks the indisposed Chief Archon and makes their way to the transport obelisk; they disappear in a cone of energy. Facing the Stargate again and the still active wormhole Matthel continues to see objects hitting the shield.


	2. Chapter 2

On their way to the command centre Nikal decides to stop off at his office before continuing, he sits behind his desk and activates his personal computer terminal. After a few key strokes on the crystal control interface he begins to systematically compress and stream the data from his personal database to his experimental ship. Joja who followed him in sits on one of the couches; she grabs a starship model from the table in front of her. Thinking hard at the elongated chevron shaped ship she remembers her history of ship design, identifying the model as the ancient Alteran ship Destiny. Becoming inpatient she sighs loudly, this didn't have the effect she was hoping for as Nikal continued to work on his computer terminal, looking at the chronometer on the wall she decides that she needs to be in the Command Centre, making her way to the door it opens with a slight hiss. This snaps Nikal out of his concentration, noticing Joja walk out he quickly typed the last few commands switching the process to automatic. "Hey wait up!" Nikal calls out as he jogs to catch up to her as she enters the transport lift. The lift rises as they continue to make their way to the Command Centre.

* * *

The lift doors open to a sea of noise and commotion, Nikal and Joja step out; looking around they notice a group of technicians and engineers in the command well arguing about some unknown topic. Elsewhere controllers and other defence specialists are about preparing for the approaching battle. They walk towards the situation room where another group of defence force personnel were briefing the commander, Joja joins the group; as one of the lead pilots still on the ground she decided her skills were better put to use to help the Commander co-ordinate the units in the air.

Commander Rhea sitting behind piles of data pads and crowded on all sides with people notices Nikal through a small gap of their bodies, asking for a moment from the gathering she gets a moment of quiet. "Nikal, I know you must be itching to test your new ship in battle, but I have one final task for you. The Wraith are blocking our Stargate, the portal shield is active so we don't have any intruders on base. But without the Stargate there is no hope of evacuating the entire civilian population. I have contacted Concordia via subspace, they are ready for evacuees but we need the gate cleared." Rhea says, Nikal ponders the issue.

"Why has the Maximum Energy Protocol not shut the wormhole down?" Nikal asks.

"What we can ascertain from the data we are receiving from the gates, the Wraith are sending not only soldiers and darts, they are also firing a directed energy beam through the wormhole. At present there is no danger to our gate overloading, the beam seems to be only strong enough to force the wormhole to stay open." Rhea replies to his query.

"We cannot force a shutdown of the Stargate from here under these circumstances; if someone was still stationed at the Pegasus Gate Hub it would be simple to override the safety protocols. But we don't have a ship fast enough to reach the hub before the fleet gets here. The only choice with our limited time is to force the wormhole to jump from our gate to the nearest one in the network." Nikal suggests. He looks around to see everyone staring at him blankly.

"I studied the gate network years ago, while its function to safely transport something from one place to another; there have been instances where the Stargate does not operate within those specific parameters. For instance if a wormhole travels too close to a star which is in the process of emitting a solar flare the wormhole loops back to the originating gate in a different time frame, we fixed the time travel and other issues in the latest generation Stargate the current blue style gates we use, but we used basically the same template and software. Now jumping was discovered shortly after its inception of the previous generation Stargate, if enough energy was pumped into an active wormhole from the dialling gate, then receiving gate would become overcharged causing the wormhole to jump to the nearest Stargate."

Moving to a terminal in the centre of the room he runs a simulation, a hologram appears on the holotable. "We need to create an energy pulse on the other side of the wormhole; the dialling device if instructed to overload then discharge its capacitors, could cause this pulse. Here is a crude patch that the computer has written..."He takes a crystal out of the terminal and gives it to Commander Rhea, "get a technician to stream this data through the wormhole on my signal; I'll be at Stargate Central standing by to dial out to Concordia the moment the wormhole deactivates." Nikal finishes.

Rhea looks up at the advisers then back to Nikal, "Well we have no other solutions, report to Stargate Central. We will follow your lead on this one." Rhea orders, Nikal walks out and enters a transport booth.

Rematerializing at the base if the tower; Nikal walks to the obelisk transporter. Activating the transporter he is whisked away, outside to Stargate Central. Arriving, the defence team step aside from the Stargate. He approaches the dialling device; standing in front of it he taps the comm badge attached to the neck of his uniform.

"Nikal to Rhea, send the software patch." He says into the device.

* * *

On a Wraith controlled world thousands of lightyears away, an army of Wraith are in a slow progression towards the Stargate. Many of the Wraith Warriors know that they would most likely not survive the trip to their enemy's hidden world. As the Warriors reach the gate they begin squat walking to avoid being hit by the energy beam. The Wraith Commanders stationed near the gate are busy ensuring that the Warriors remain in order and the beam is function correctly, they do not notice the dialling device flicker as the patch is received and the update to its operating system takes effect. The dialling device begins an overload of its power core, moments later energy is seen arching over the ring of the Stargate. The Warrior army stops moving forward as the wormhole destabilises, with the event horizon flickering. Uncertain what to do the Warriors await instructions from the Commanders.

* * *

At Galactic Core arcs of electricity also form over the ring of Stargate, as the wormhole begins to flicker. Nikal faces the Stargate noticing the wormhole destabilizing as the once calm ripple effect begins to flicker and fizz. He places his hand on the central dome of the dialling device; mentally connecting to the Stargate he perceives the data. He notices the Stargate's safety protocols attempting to stabilise the wormhole. The safety protocols begin to fail one by one as the processing core determines that the wormhole is no longer sustainable. Moments later the Stargate appears to overload and the wormhole deactivates.

Nikal springs into action, quickly touching seven symbols on the dialling device, hitting the central dome the Stargate activates once again, the unstable vortex does not form as the shield is still active.

Stepping back Nikal taps his comm device, "Nikal to Rhea, the Stargate is open to Concordia. I recommend you begin evacuations immediately." He said.

Rhea responds as he approaches the transport obelisk, "Good work Nikal, preparations are under way." The channel closes and he selects his destination in the Glass Tower.

* * *

The now disposed Chief Archon of Galactic Core sat in a soft chair in one of the many offices in the Command Centre. Watched by a single guard he knew that any escape attempt would be fruitless. Sitting in the room he realises that his arrogance over the years had blinded him from seeing the rift that had formed between him and the defence personnel. He considered the cuts he made to the Galactic Core branch of the Lantean Defence Force, causing the weakening of the defences in this system, which was a dumb move during war time. He knew that his time as leader of this outpost was over.

As he sat he thought of his last possible avenue of escape, Ascension. It was not a secret that many Lanteans had ascended, and he spent the last few years secretly attempting to become one. It was one of the reasons he needed Galactic Core's sensor array to be transferred to his control earlier in the day, his recent experiment required tremendous amounts of energy but he did not want to infringe on the outposts power modules and generators as such a drop in power would be suspicious. He thought that if a large percentage of the sensors were to be taken offline, then he would be able to mask his most recent attempt at using a subspace capacitor to power his version of the DNA manipulation machine. He was successful at masking his actions, but at the same time came at the cost of delaying the preparation of the outpost's defence. His experiment from earlier in the day however was a success and his body was advanced to the next stage once again, and still slowly evolving, but he needed to go through at least one more treatment to be able to, in theory ascend. He already felt certain abilities beginning to prominently manifest themselves; telekinesis, telepathy and many more were becoming stronger. His only concern was that he did not have the necessary skills to safely control the new abilities, each minute he felt his control slip.

Moving to the door he asks the guard to bring in his assistant, the guard complies. "Maya could you please go to my office and retrieve a device for me. It is in my secure storage closet behind my desk. Take this crystal to unlock the closet." He walks towards the table where other personal items Tyros was carrying lay in neat rows, reaching out a crystal slides across the desk landing in his hands. Maya the assistant leaves with the crystal. He reassures the guard that the device is not dangerous, and that it is in fact a medical tool that he is using for an experiment that he is running on himself.

Maya returns ten minutes later. "I am sorry sir; I was unsure which device you wanted so I brought all the devices that did not look dangerous." She places the small devices on the table.

Tyros grabs one, "Thank you, this is the one. The rest can be returned to my office."

Maya picks up the other devices and leaves once more. The guard looks the device over; it appears to be a monitor to measure and record biodata. Satisfied that the device is not and could not be used as a weapon he gives back to Tyros. He attaches the device to his forehead and concentrates; it activates and begins to force his evolution to progress at a faster state. He knows that if he fails he would end up like the other Lanteans who failed to achieve ascension, but he decides that dying in an attempt to reach ascension is a better option rather than being consumed by the Wraith. Lights start blinking on the device as a bright beam emanates and bathes him. Moments later Tyros let out a massive scream, everyone in the Command Centre stops what they are doing to look up at the office.

Commander Rhea runs out of the Situation Room, as she makes her final approach to the office the guard is thrown through the air, landing down in the command well. The door slides shut, she moves to the glass door which does not open, all she can do is watch Tyros on the ground, slowly the room becomes brighter as he starts shedding his physical form.

He begins to ascend, but something suddenly goes wrong, horribly wrong. His body reforms as he is screaming in pain, the bright light begins to fade. His floating naked form suddenly drops back on the ground. With his hands on his head, he continues to scream in agony as blood begins dripping from his nose. He looks directly at Rhea concentrating.

Rhea stands shocked, then everything seems to slowdown and stops; she hears Tyros' voice inside her head. "I am sorry. I was wrong and I now see it. I tried to escape but it did not work, and I'm dying. Arrrgh." Tyros let out another scream. "Evacuate this world as fast as possible."

She looks around and sees everything returning to normal, she approaches the lifeless body on the ground. Touching the side of his neck she tries to sense his biosigns. She finds none. No pulse, no brain activity, nothing. Moving out to the balcony, she sees the guard slumped over the command well central console.

She walks back to the Situation Room deeply disturbed, "Begin sending the evacuees, start with the patients in the medical bays and all unnecessary personnel. I want the Galactic Core Database to be copied and sent with them. Load any transport ship still docked with as much cargo as they can carry. Use the internal cargo transporters to speed up this. Someone get me Concordia on subspace." She walks out determined to save as many people as possible.

She approaches the terminal overlooking the command well; touching the console she mentally activates the comm system which broadcasts system wide. "Attention all personnel, all civilian personnel who are not vital to the defence of this outpost are to report to Stargate Central for immediate evacuation to Concordia. If you wish to take anything with you then please limit it anything you can carry." She ends the comm broadcast.

She quickly makes her way down the main staircase to the command well; as she approaches she watches helplessly as a group of medical personnel place their hands on the unmoving security guard. Seeing their faces they appear to be in deep concentration focusing their energy in to using their healing abilities, in an attempt to save the critically injured guard. The group finish almost as quickly as they started, one of the healers looks directly at Rhea shaking their head. The security guard was injured to greatly to be saved; the lifeless body is taken off the control console to the medical bay. Two others move up the staircase with a hover bed to collect the deceased High Archon.

Rhea takes a moment then looks at the faces of the people working in the command well; she promptly relieves them of duty. Many decide to stay while a few shaking are taken to the medical bay. Replacements quickly arrive and Rhea begins to issue orders. "I want all weapon batteries throughout the outpost charged and ready, drone platforms are to be brought online. The satellite weapons array is to be brought to full power, coordinate with fleet assets to reduce the chances of friendly fire. Weapons officers are to report to their duty stations and secondary chair control rooms. Energise the shield."

The orders are quickly implemented; she looks at the communications officer. "There are two Aurora Class vessels in deep space near the Lantean System, contact them. Tell them they are to report to Galactic Core to assist in the defence of the base."

The communication officer nods and contacts the ships. The officer quickly frowns, "Excuse me ma'am, I have hailed the ships at the coordinates but there is only one ship the Australis, I have their Commander on subspace."

Rhea nods at the officer, above the command well, a holographic screen forms and the image of the ship's commander appears. "Commander Rhea. We have received your order to proceed to Galactic Core; I have ordered the ship to proceed at our maximum hyperspace velocity." The ship commander states, Rhea nods and responds.

"Thank you, now I was informed by a contact in Atlantis before they evacuated that there were two ships on final approach to Atlantis, where is the other ship?"

The ship commander sighs, "Approximately one hour ago, Commander Helia of the Tria decided to follow our brethren to Avalon. She plans to travel there to meet up with the evacuees. I was sceptical as our hyperdrives are not designed for such a lengthy trip, but she was insistent that she would leave with or without us. I decided to stay; I did not want to risk this ship being stuck in the void between our galaxies if our hyperdrive failed."

Rhea once again nods in understanding. "Thank you for staying in this galaxy. Further instructions will be provided for your deployment when you get here, I will have someone here coordinate with you to bring you up to speed on the situation. See you soon, Rhea out." The holographic screen disappears.

* * *

In outer orbit around the planet a group of twelve massive point defence satellites light up as its systems come online. Due to understaffing many of the stations have had no people on board to maintain its systems in recent times, thus several of the satellites are in various states of disrepair and disuse causing the response times to be below optimal. Vessels already in orbit form up, not knowing where the wraith will exactly exit hyperspace they begin to patrol the orbit. The defence shuttles earlier launched from the surface form into several squadrons, which accompany the various ships in orbit.

In the vastness of space, dozens of hyperspace windows open, emerging from several is the exploding husks of Wraiths ships; these ships were travelling too close to the distortions that permeate through subspace. If wraith sensors were considerably more powerful they could have identified the distortions and avoided them. More windows open on a different heading, emerging from these windows are Wraith Hive ships and their support cruisers in close formation. Three Aurora Class warships in break orbit and face the enemy, eight Lantean cruisers follow in quick succession, the gathering of ships are designated battle fleet Alpha.

On the surface inside the Command Centre havoc breaks out as alerts sound, standing in the sea of chaos is Commander Rhea. "Bring the satellites to full power, priority targets are the Wraith capital ships." Rhea says calmly to the satellite officers. Looking at the holographic table she notices that the functional ships that are docked at the outpost are still in their docking bays. Shouting out she tries to find an explanation, "I need the reinforcements from the surface in the air, what are they waiting for?" A technician down in the command well replies to her, "Eight of the fifteen ships are in their final take off sequences…" The technician gets cut off by Rhea, "Pre-empt the launch sequence, we need the Battle Fleet Beta in orbit immediately. I don't want to see any of the ships being attacked during take-off." She finishes fuming at the captain taking their time.

While Lantean ships are built tough, extremely powerful, and versatile; like any ship taking off from the surface it's the time where it's the most vulnerable. With much of the power generated being dedicated to flight systems, if a ship were to come under attack and systems were knocked offline then the ship could plummet to the ground. Several technicians move to the central control console, touching the crystal interface they override the ship's controls. In the docking slips at the ship yards, the fifteen combat ready ships take-off, rising fast they clear the tallest structures of the outpost. Activating the sub-light engines the ships move forward at incredible speed gaining altitude rapidly.

In space the Wraith fleet enters weapons range of the Lantean ships part of Battle Fleet Alpha. The Hive ships disgorge hundreds of darts per ship; thousands form up in front of the wraith fleet. The Dart pilots knew they would be ineffective in stopping the drone weapons. The Lantean Cruisers open fire on the Wraith Cruisers, being the only ships in the fleet, except for Nikal's new experimental ship, with ship mounted energy based weapons. Meanwhile the Aurora Class Warships fire salvos of drones, the squid shaped objects glow a bright yellow. Accelerating rapidly the drones reach the assembled Wraith fleet; quickly dodging the horde of Darts, the stream of drones becomes two smaller streams as they take aim at the closest Wraith Hives as they get closer they activate. On the outside surface a thin layer of superheated plasma forms. Two Hive ships are swarmed; the drones pierce the organic hull armour with such heat that the hull cannot immediately begin repairing itself. Traveling through the ships the drones exit before turning back to enter at a new point. Outer sections of the ship vent atmosphere to space, as the drone's power reserves reach critically low the drones detonate. Many drones detonate near the power core and wraith equivalent of a main power conduit, causing critical secondary explosions. Both ships violently explode, causing a shockwave which hits nearby Wraith ships, causing extensive damage to the nearby Cruisers and destroying a significant percentage of the assembled Darts.

One of the Aurora class Warships presses the attack, the captain seizes total control of his ship through his control chair to ensure his actions are not countermanded; accelerating hard the ship breaks formation with the other Lantean ships. The captain orders a larger salvo of drones to be fired. Weapon bay doors open along the top as well as the port and starboard sides of the ship. The computer shows the captain that such an action could cause system wide power issues; it attempts to compensate and offer a better firing solution, the captain ignores the warning and suggestion. He proceeds with the firing sequence. The salvo of drones is let loose; the Wraith quickly notices the lone ship out of formation and seizes the opportunity to attack the ship. The closest ships target their weapons on the ship, five nearby hives and ten cruisers along with their accompanying Darts fire continuously at the Lantean Warship. The drones easily dodge the incoming fire, but in comparison to the energy weapons, the drones take longer to reach their intended targets. The launching ship is quickly overwhelmed by the weapons fire, the conformal shields glow orange as the shield is continuously pounded. Inside the ship, overloads occur throughout the power distribution network as the shield emitters try to suck more and more power out of the ships power reserves. Unfortunately this particular ship was not equipped with a Potentia power module.

Under the tremendous strain the shield emitter's burnout, causing the shields to collapse. Even with the shields offline, the captain of the vessel refuses to retreat. Pressing his attack he decides to set a collision course with a nearby hive. With the Wraith weapons fire hitting directly on the unshielded ship, the Aurora class warship shows how vulnerable the space frame is without proper shielding. Large sections of hull plating are blasted off, as crew members in nearby sections are sucked into space. Crew members closest to the hanger bays are the lucky ones as they board shuttles and gate ships with the intention of evacuating the ship. On the bridge several crew members leave their stations, running out to reach the nearest escape pods; the captain disconnects his mind from the command control chair and sees the bridge officers running to the rear door. Before he can order them back to their stations, a bolt of blue plasma hits the bridge module. The large bridge windows occupying the forward section are destroyed, with the captain and the few remaining officers are instantly vaporised as the bridge and adjacent compartments are destroyed. With overall control of the ship lost, and its crew in disarray; the ship takes a few more hits before one bolt hits one of the ten large fusion reactors. The ship explodes, vaporising it and creating a shockwave. The shockwave destroys several of the closer evacuating shuttles that had their cloaks active to avoid being targeted by the wraith, thus leaving them unshielded. The evacuating shuttles that survived were either further away or had their shields running.

The Lantean defence shuttles move away from the assembled fleet to face the Wraith Darts and to provide cover for the remaining evacuee shuttles. The defence shuttles form up, working in a wall formation, each ship fires continuously from their small duel plasma bolt cannons. These small weapons while small and less powerful, are able to fire in quick procession meaning they are perfect against the organic hull armour of smaller wraith vessels.

In low orbit the fifteen recently launched ships that compose Battle Fleet Beta, make their way rapidly to the battle. With the wraith having space superiority it was time for the Lanteans to try and even the odds. All Lantean ships perform a short hyperspace jump to move out of the immediate battle theatre. This move surprised and shocked the wraith as they were expecting the Lanteans to put up more of a fight. The wraith move to target the shuttles and fighters still in the area, pushing their sublight drives hard. They quickly catch up to the fleeing ships, as the lead ships prepare to fire at the shuttles their sensors pick up objects in orbit decloaking. The decloaked objects were the full charged satellite weapons.

* * *

In the command centre, Commander Rhea was not willing to lose the initiative after using a new tactic to trick the Wraith into believing their fleet had abandoned them. "Target nearby wraith capital vessels with the satellite weapon. Set for continuous beam. Priority targets are the Hive ships, if any smaller vessels attempt to get close to the satellites disable them with the point defence systems. As soon as the satellites have emptied their capacitors recall Battle Fleet Alpha and Beta." Rhea orders.

In space the satellites move position taking aim at several hive ships, they all fire at once. Nine hives are destroyed in the opening salvo along with these cruisers positioned behind the hives, the bright green beams slice through the unshielded ships and continue out into space. The satellites quickly recharge and begin to fire again. The hives this time are prepared and begin manoeuvre to avoid being targeted, many ships are still hit and destroyed. With the fight in space evening out, Battle Fleets Alpha and Beta exit from hyperspace and push the attack behind the Wraith fleet. Eight wraith cruisers move out of position to distract the new comers while the bulk of the fleet targets the satellites. All the ships fire simultaneously at the unshielded satellites which are destroyed in seconds.

Rhea assesses the situation from her position in the Battle Room which is located below of the main command centre level. The room contains a large holographic system which is tied into the outpost subspace sensor array which provides her and her consultants real time data on the Battle. "I'm seeing a lot of our defence shuttles out of formation, the darts are slowly taking them down one by one. Joja is there anything you can do?" Rhea asks concerned.

Joja looks at the holographic representation of the Fleet in orbit, "Hm, there is little I can do from here. I recommend issuing a recall order for all fighters, once they reach orbit they can regroup and press the attack."

Rhea looks back at the holographic representation of the Battle, "Do it." She orders. "How is the evacuation proceeding?" She asks to anyone in the group.

One advisor in the background moves forward to report, "approximately forty five percent of the civilian population has been evacuated via the Stargate. We are being slowed down by the size of Concordia's gate room, they need time to move everyone from the central control tower and out into the city's outskirts."

Rhea does a few quick sums in her head, "Will Concordia have the space to house the entire civilian population of Galactic Core? Because my rough calculations are coming up short." She says concerned.

The man continues, "I believe they are in the process of transporting as many of the evacuees off the city ship to ships in orbit, as well as moving people to the small outpost on the mainland."

"Double check with Concordia, I do not want to have to stop the evacuation half way without an alternative to route of escape with all the hyperspace capable ships we have are either in Battle or being loaded up with supplies." She finishes and continues to look at the Battle as it rages on.

* * *

Nikal runs through the Galactic Core Glass Tower, after he successfully closed the wormhole which was blocking the Stargate; the evacuations were now in full swing. He slows down by one of the windows and sees the ship yard docking area in the distance, the Aurora Warships that recently taken off are mere specks in the sky. He notes the transport vessels being loaded with supplies and personnel choosing to evacuate via the transport ships.

Moving on he enters his office, still on his couch is the bag he brought from Atlantis, containing the data crystals with the entire database. Picking the bag up, he takes one last look around the room at all his life's achievements that are on display. He approaches his desk; on it are various datapads, and draft designs etched on paper, as well as a device showing a holographic image on its display. Taking this one item he quickly places it in the bag and runs out of the office, leaving everything else behind.

Running to the transporter booth on that level, he enters it. A screen appears on the rear wall, he touches an icon that represents a similar booth near the shuttle bay. The doors close and he is instantly transported away. The doors slowly open and he races to find a shuttle, entering the hanger bay he notices many people running to shuttles.

One person catches his eye; running over to him Nikal enters the shuttle. "Archon Nikal, I thought you would have left after you reset the Stargate." The man says, as Nikal looks at him.

"No, no. I cannot leave, well not yet anyway. I have to get to my ship. Where are you going with this shuttle Technician Jad? It is not equipped with any form of FTL propulsion." Nikal asks Jad, he looks around to the group of staff from the Command Centre as they have decided to follow him.

"Ah… I was planning to cloak the shuttle and fly out into the solar system. We'll stay on one of the habitable moons and wait out the attack there." Jad responds, in a half convincing tone. This makes Nikal think that he is making his plan up as he goes. Nikal looks at all the people crammed into the small space.

"You all know who I am. I have worked with many of you and I know all of you are making the right decision to leave this planet. Your idea Jad is clever as the wraith will most likely ignore the moon as there is no infrastructure on the surface and no life forms worth feeding on. However your journey to that moon deep in the system is at least a three day journey. As I can see there are not many supplies on board. I offer everyone another solution, join me and crew my ship. It may not be complete but it has a hyperdrive that could get us to safety." He pauses to see the group smiling and nodding at his proposal.

Jad sees that the group are willing to join someone willing to look after their best interests. "I too agree to your plan, Commander Nikal." Jad says as he takes a seat at the pilot's station. He mentally orders the systems online and the rear door slides shut as the ramp is brought back into the main body. The shuttle rises; Nikal uses the comm system to contact nearby shuttles, offering them the chance to escape the system if necessary. Only a hand full decide to join him with many not putting their lives in the hands of an untested piece of technology, otherwise known as his experimental ship.

The shuttle leaves the confines of the shuttle bay. In the distance Nikal's Experimental ship lights up. "Sir, if you are planning to take your ship into battle then I believe it will need a name." Jad says to Nikal as he makes minor adjustments to the shuttles course. Nikal thinks about it for a while, it would be ridiculous to continue calling the ship 'Nikal's Experimental Ship' or just 'the ship'.

"You are right. Tradition calls for the first ship of a new class to be named after said class which means the ship should be named Videum, but I think I will forgo this particular tradition for a name I have been thinking about for quite some time. From this day forward the ship shall be known as the Rickard. Of course the ship will need an executive officer." Nikal replies and winks to Jad.

Jad is surprised at the offer, "Ah, I can't be your XO. I'm just a technician." He replies flustered, before he can continue Nikal cuts him off.

"Yeah and I'm just a scientist, who spent the last decade in a senior position in our Council, and who just happens to now be in command of the most advanced starship in the Lantean fleet. How many scientists, engineers, or technicians have ever been in full command of a starship? Well excluding science vessels. The answer is too few, we have the skills to properly utilise our ships." Nikal states, Jad looks at him still not entirely convinced that he is the best option.

"Fine, I agree. But you will need a military adviser to help out at some stage." Jad finishes.

* * *

He lowers the shuttle in preparation of final approach. Rapidly approaching the Rickard, Jad and others in the rear compartment look out of the three main large windows to see the incredibly large ship.

The Rickard was four times larger than the Aurora class warship, being twelve kilometres in length, the rear of the ship is wide at the rear to accommodate the new propulsion array. The space frame shared a close resemblance to the Aurora class, as the design was proven to be extremely capable. The advantage of this ship was the fact it was designed as a warship from the very beginning. Unlike the Aurora class beginning its life as a science or patrol vessel, equipped only to defend itself and not to go on the offensive.

The group of shuttles slow down and dock in the forward hanger bay, Nikal quickly walks out and makes his way to the main exit. "Ship." Nikal says to no one. In front of him the holographic representation of the ship's Artificial Intelligence appears.

"Good evening Commander. All preparations for departure have been implemented. I did not expect additional personnel... Accessing the Galactic Core Archive for records now. Would you like me to guide them to appropriate areas of the ship?" The hologram asks.

"Yes that would be great, however I have one more thing to do." He walks over to a computer terminal on the wall, he disconnects a device from the console. The device is a small three folding computing device that can form a tablet. He unfolds the device which activates showing him data from the ships mainframe.

He speaks to the device, "Master override. Access starship base code; identification configuration cluster." The screen changes showing information regarding the ships identification, currently the screen shows the code name Videum. "Update starship name; new name, Rickard." The device uploads the changes to the main computer, the device refreshes and the ships name displays as Rickard. "Access AI core configuration." Again the screen changes and show important information about the AI core. "Update AI code name. New name Rickard. End session." The tablet once again sends the new data to the main computer which updates the entire system. The tablet's screen goes dark and Nikal folds it closed and tucks it into his pocket.

"Rickard" He says again as the hologram disappeared during the update.

"Yes Commander." The Rickard hologram responds as Nikal continues.

"Issue all new personnel with a tablet device. Assist Executve Officer Jad in moving personnel to areas of the ship where they will be the most use. Show them the personnel quarters and mess area." Nikal orders.

The hologram nods in acknowledgement before disappearing. Nikal walks to the assembled group, "Ok everyone if I could have a moment of your time. Welcome aboard the Rickard. Under better circumstances I would offer everyone a tour of the ship but there is little time, I would also like to apologise for the condition of several areas of the ship. Many corridors, and rooms are yet to be complete so you will find that many sections are missing wall paneling or lighting systems have not been properly calibrated. Please do not be discouraged by these sights as this ship is only incomplete in a cosmetic sense. Anyway continuing with this brief introduction, I have named Technician Jad as my Executive Officer, I have asked him to help find a place for you here where your skills will be at best use. If you get lost on board just call for the ships avatar like so. Rickard…" The hologram of Rickard appears. "…please introduce yourself." Nikal says.

"Greetings, my name is Rickard and I am the visual representation of the artificial intelligence aboard this vessel. If there is anything you need help with just call out and I will appear. I will respond when Rickard is called out, however I will also respond to 'ship' or some other nickname you wish to address me as. Do not be surprised if you see me with other crew members at the same time, as I can project multiple instances to maximise my ability to assist with system access. If you do not wish to access the my interface the ships computer is accessible for enquires when you call out "system". Now if everyone could please follow me I will take you all to the main cafeteria zone, I have taken the liberty to synthesise items that will hopefully assist in settling in, and to ensure maximum usability of the systems aboard this vessel." The hologram states. It turns and begins to walk towards the door, the group follows. "If there are any questions along the way I will be happy to answer them." Nikal leaves the group and enters a transport booth, selecting the command section.

Upon reaching the command section, Nikal immediately notes the missing wall panels in the the wide open space where the the transport booth is located. Walking past the stack of panels on the floor which are ready for installation he continues on to the bridge. The door opens automatically as he approaches it, entering the bridge, he see several of the newly installed consoles still have plastic draped over them.

"Rickard, please bring all systems online prepare for immediate departure." Nikal says out loud for the AI to pick up. A series of tones alerts him to the order being carried out as consoles around the large bridge come to life, with the bridge lighting changing from a warm dull colour scheme to a bright white daylight scheme indicating the status change in the ships operation.

Moving to the command chair he removes the plastic sheet, he crumples it and throws it to the ground. Taking a seat he interfaces with the control chair. This control chair while operating exactly as previous iterations, was cosmetically different. This control chair was designed to be comfortable unlike the Aurora class variant which was just a hunk of lightweight metal with three soft pads to sit on, to lay back on, and to rest your head. These control chairs lacked the ability to directly interface with the user, unless the user places a single hand on the control interface panel. The seat Nikal designed allowed a captain to stay in one place longer as they would not get uncomfortable, the interface was also redesigned, thus just sitting in the seat user would be immediately interface with the ship.

The ships avatar appears on the bridge, "All primary systems are online at one hundred percent efficiency. Secondary systems are also at one hundred percent, however several tertiary systems are yet to be installed or complete. This means there is only one level of back up to the systems." The avatar states.

"I understand. If the evacuees are settled in then could you please inform Executive Officer Jad to please report to the bridge." Nikal says to the Rickard hologram.

"Yes Commander." The avatar says as it disappears.

Minutes later with the assistance of the ships AI, Jad reaches the bridge, he walks onto the bridge with Rickard next to him. "Captain, several of the civilians have decided to stay together in the main mess hall. While the majority of them are reporting to areas where your AI has calculated they'll be the most use, the infirmary, main engineering, excetra. You'll be surprised to find out that a group of twenty junior technicians and engineers have banded together to complete some of the cosmetic issues through out the ship. I believe the mess hall walls will have paneling in time for the evening meal... assuming we get to have an evening meal at all." Jad finishes half jokingly.

Nikal smiles at this, his dream for this ship was to have a crew even though this particular class of ship was designed to be operated with only a handful of people; even one person could operate the ship assuming the ship was not severely damaged. "That's wonderful news, lets indeed hope we still have an intact ship for us to have an evening meal." Nikal half-jokingly remarks. Rickard moves to a position in front and to the right of Nikal.

"All docking bays have been secured, all air locks are sealed, I have finished preflight diagnostics." The hologram states.

"Very well, contact GACC. Request permission to depart." Nikal orders the hologram.

"Opening channel, please stand by." The hologram says crisply, as it's facial expression changes to one of concern. "Commander, Galactic Core Command is not issuing permission to depart. It appears the Wraith have reached orbit."

Nikal jumps out of the main control chair which promptly deactivates, "Short range sensors, show me what is going on up there." Nikal orders the hologram. The main windows of the bridge darken as large holographic screens appear in front of the windows showing sensor telemetry. Three smaller holographic screens appear closer to Nikal and Jad.

"Oh gosh." Jad says, Nikal nods in agreement.

Nikal moves to a console and brings the holographic communications system online, in moments it appears that he is standing in the Command Centre. "Rhea what is going on?" The holographic representation of Nikal asks.

"The Wraith are assuming orbit and our plan to trick them into our satellite trap has only be partially successful, but we have pretty much handed them an undefended orbit. Sensors have detected multiple squadrons of darts approaching the outpost as we speak." She pauses clearly under a lot of stress. "You have permission to depart, on your way up please collect the defence shuttles, they won't last long and landing is not a viable option at the moment for them. We are charging the outposts defences I would recommend a direct ascent to reach orbit, I would not like to be the person responsible for putting holes in your new ship. I'll leave that for the Wraith. I'll alert the other half of Battle Fleet Delta to be ready to enter the fray with you. Good luck Nikal." Rhea finishes, the hologram disappears.

Nikal deactivates the holographic communications system, from his perception the bridge reappears. "Prepare for immediate departure. Rickard set a direct ascent course." Nikal orders. As he moves to the communications terminal on the left of the bridge, he begins recording a message. _'This is Archon Nikal, Commander of the Warship Rickard. To all Lantean small craft. Please make your way to these coordinates, cloak and standby to be picked up.'_ "Jad can you please encrypt the message and send it on a secure Lantean frequency." Nikal asks.

"Can do." Jad Replies.

Nikal takes a seat in the command chair and opens a channel throughout the ship, "This is the Captain, to all personnel please report back to the main mess hall. Standby for immediate departure." He closes the channel and through the chair mentally instructs the ship with plans to reach orbit.

Rickard reappears, "Commander, I have plotted your course directly into orbit. I however must inform you that such a manoeuvre has not been never been attempted inside the atmosphere with a ship this large, there could be irreparable damage to the docking slip and the surrounding infrastructure." It finishes.

"I understand the risks. Its either perform a small hyperspace jump or slowly climb into orbit where we can be rained upon with plasma bolts." Nikal says. He sits back in his chair, the blue control crystals illuminate; placing both hands on the arms of his chair he gains access and control to all the ships systems. The bridge lighting dims slightly, and the deck starts to vibrate as the inertial dampeners begin to compensate for the increasing power being channeled to the sunlight engines.

Outside the ship docking clamps and boarding ramps retract from the large warship, the entire twelve kilometre long docking slip powers down as the ship slowly rises. As the ship reaches one hundred metres from the surface a large interdimensional tear opens in front of the ship. This tear opening into hyperspace causes lighting to strike out and large amounts of air to be sucked in as both normal space and hyperspace react to one another. Moments after the window opens the Warship Rickard jumps through.

* * *

In orbit of Galactic Core another tear in space opens, the Rickard is expelled. It is immediately faced with the large Wraith Fleet. "Shields up! Go to tactical condition alpha." Nikal says aloud. A dull orange conformal shield appears around the ship as the lights on the bridge change to the dimmer battle conditions setting. From his seat Nikal brings the weapons systems online, once they are charged Nikal fires without hesitation.


	3. Chapter 3

The Rickard positions itself with the twelve-kilometre long broadside weapons array firing relentlessly from the hundreds of large plasma cannons. Bright yellow bolts of superheated plasma are hurled at great speeds as the first ships to be hit are the lead Wraith vessels mainly consisting of their Cruiser class. The Wraith quickly realise that a new player has entered the fray. They immediately slow their advance, with many ships retreating in a chaotic attempt to regroup. Their retreat gives the Rickard some breathing room to bring aboard the shuttles and fighters. Around the length of the ship, small craft decloak and approach the four hanger bays on either side of the ship. Larger small craft that are unable to land, attach themselves to the hull of the ship. The crews are then transported aboard with the short-range transporters.

"Rickard, show the pilots to the mess hall. And get the injured to the medical facilities; begin triaging the worse injuries, but make sure everyone is looked at." Nikal orders the ship's advanced AI avatar. The avatar acknowledges with a nod, it does not disappear this time as it projects another hologram of itself in both the hangers, and the medical facility. Nikal concentrates and continues to fire from the broadside weapons array targeting the closest Wraith vessels.

The retreating Wraith vessels begin to scatter as Battle Fleets Alpha and Beta approach from the rear, the Lantean ships once again goes weapons free as hundreds of drones take flight towards the fleeing Wraith vessels. The few thousand remaining Darts change course to avoid the drones as much as possible, knowing that they would do little to stop the drones reaching the larger ships. Setting a new course to inflict considerable damage, their new courses take them straight to the planet, their target however is not the Rickard in orbit but the outpost on the surface.

Nikal gets up out of the command chair which promptly deactivates and moves towards a forward control console which is being operated by Jad. "What are they doing?" Nikal rhetorically asks.

The hologram answers, "The estimated flight paths suggest a direct course for the Galactic Core Outpost." Rickard says with some concern entering his voice. New holographic screens appear with flight data, impact zones and other statistics.

"There are thousands of them, all on slightly different headings. Some will impact the shielded areas… but many will hit the unprotected zones; the industrial areas, power generation, the outskirt residential blocks. Virtually all areas surrounding the outpost which aren't protected by the shield. Even if the shield was to be extended it would only offer little protection with the strain it would be under." Jad says as he continually runs simulations of possible scenarios. "I'm going to run a biosign scan to see how many are still outside the shield." Jad initiates the scan and his face immediately drops as the results begin filtering in on the screens.

"Biosign scan complete. Interpolating data." The hologram states.

"Show it. Main screen." Jad says with some difficulty. The screens from earlier clears as a count begins to rise.

"Eleven thousand, six hundred and thirty-two bio signs detected outside shielded perimeters." Rickard says as his emotional subroutines emulate concern.

Nikal moves back to the control chair which lights up, closing his eyes he wills the ship forward. He mentally provides instructions for the ship to plot an intercept course to the swarm of darts. He knows there is no way he could reach them from his position in orbit but he must try. He brings online another experimental system a new type of weapon.

The Rickard hologram immediately reacts to the weapons activation. "Master Caution! The Plasma Lance has not been tested. This action is not recommended." It says as its regular personality is overridden by the basic weapon safety protocols.

"Override on my authority" Nikal states, he could have overridden the safeties himself through the chair but was busy concentrating on piloting and acquiring targets.

"Wraith vessels will not be in range for viable target lock, this course of action is not recommended." It states.

"We cannot just stay here and do nothing. Your logic processes may not come to that conclusion." Jad says with some anger in his voice.

The Rickard enters the atmosphere at full sublight, the shields flares brightly as heat builds up. The ship begins to shake, the inertial dampeners stabilise the ship as efficiently as they can under the circumstance. In the front of the ship four weapons pods open revealing dishes with points in the centre. Energy begins to crackle over the surface of the dish as a beam of energy is fired forward. It immediately reacts with the atmosphere, the bright yellow beam losing cohesion long before hitting any of the thousands of targets.

"Damn it. I never considered the Lance not functioning within an atmosphere." Nikal says in a frustrated tone. He slams his hands on the control chair arms. "I've got nothing, I don't know what to do to save anyone down there." He finishes, as the ship stabilises its rapid decent.

"Hyperspace windows opening, several Lantean transport class vessels are departing." Rickard states as its personality subroutines reactivate.

One screen shows the readings from the sensors, it shows the ship yards where the transport ships loading cargo being ejected from their docking slips, where they hover above the ground as large drive pods extend. In front of these ships hyperspace windows open and they escape.

"I'm detecting weapons activations on the surface, drone platforms and plasma cannons are charged and… they're firing." Jad says looking back from his console.

"It is too late, even if they hit the darts the debris would still cause serious damage." Nikal replies. "Access visual feed for Stargate Central, and open a holographic channel to Commander Rhea." He says aloud for Rickard to pick up.

Another holographic screen appears and displays a visual of evacuees entering the gate three at a time.

The communications system activates and a visual representation of Commander Rhea appears, "Nikal… I assume you have assessed the situation." She sighs, "There is nothing we can do, our simulations suggested that the darts would burn up during entry which is partially correct. The pilots are most likely dead, but the darts are ballistic. They will hit the power generation complex outside the shield, which will diminish the shield capacity and the number of weapons we can keep online. The six power modules underneath Glass Tower are reaching critical levels. The shield is a tremendous strain on the power modules, we have diverted so much power to ensure that its matrix can handle the impending impacts. Throw in the weapons and the active Stargate, we will have virtually no power to run all three once the generators are taken out." She finishes looking around.

"There is eleven thousand people outside the shield, what are you going to do about them?" Jad interrupted.

"There is nothing we can do, we cannot protect them. You must understand Jad that Galactic Core was a research centre once, not a military base. We never upgraded the systems here to battle standards because we believed the Wraith would never find our sanctuary world. There are no underground bunkers, no emergency transport protocols. An evacuation of this magnitude needs days not hours and minutes." She replies clearly deflated.

Nikal starts talking before Jad could begin a debate. "Rhea, evacuate your people from the command centre now. You have moments before the darts impact. There is no use in you sacrificing more lives, it will do nobody any good." Nikal says compassionately.

She leaves the holographic channel open but appears to face away, she speaks to everyone in the control room of the Glass Tower, "Attention everyone, set your stations to automatic and report to Stargate Central. Immediately." She then addresses Nikal. "I'm going to set the self-destruct, this sounds careless and cruel but we cannot leave whoever may survive just for the Wraith to feed on them. A quick and painless death is better than what is waiting for them if the Wraith get them. And I cannot begin to comprehend leaving all the technology here should for it to fall into their hands. Their biotech is enough to deal with as it is." She closes the channel.

"Rickard plot a course back into orbit, on the way up we will do as much damage to the darts as we can. It might buy them some time." Nikal says.

Jad stands there is shock, he is not able to comprehend the level of destruction about to be unleashed. "After this I'm standing down as executive officer. I cannot help but feel that we have failed everyone down there. We can do so much more."

"I understand and respect that decision, I agree that we could have done more. But in doing so we would have lost this ship, lost the lives we are currently saving and most importantly we would have failed saving those down there. We will discuss this further later, until then I expect you will do your duty." Nikal says.

The Rickard goes to full sublight and begins a rapid ascent, now reaching the outer bounds of the outpost it begins firing all its available weapons. Drones and plasma cannon fire lights the night sky as the Rickard inflicts as much damage as possible on its way into orbit. Its shields flare bright yellow as empty darts hit the ship with tremendous force.

* * *

Commander Rhea steps out of the situation room and runs down the small staircase to the Command Well. At the central console she touches it, a screen appears with various command directives. She brings up the self-destruct protocol. Tapping on the crystal controls she orders the computer to calculate the necessary energy release to destroy just the outpost. She knows that the power modules while losing power as each minute passes, still contains enough charge to obliterate the planet and several of the moons in orbit. The computer finishes its calculation and displays a simulation of the destruction. Its predictions show that the land mass that the outpost resides on would be destroyed, but the planet would remain intact and possibly recover within the next eight to nine thousand years.

She locks down the station and remotely every other station, and runs back up to her office. She grabs a pack from behind her desk and leaves with all due haste. Entering the transport chamber, she selects the ground floor. The doors take a moment to close as the ground floor transport chamber is in use. She rematerialises on the ground floor where she makes a quick dash to the transport obelisk. A group of people are already standing there, they see her running and wait for her to reach them to activate the obelisk. The group are whisked away to Stargate Central where a steadily moving stream of people is entering the Stargate three at a time.

She takes the communicator off the collar of her high neck, white uniform. With a mental command, she activates the device changing its setting to loud. "Attention everyone entering the Stargate. We need to hurry the evacuation along. There is little time left. Please rearrange yourselves to enter five abreast. Thank you." She deactivates the device and pins it back to the collar.

Specialist Matthel who has been stationed at the Stargate since the beginning approaches Rhea clearly exhausted. "Commander, do you have any further instructions? We have been keeping security around the Gate in case panic sets in and people start rushing."

"No, I only ask that you stay to the last possible moment. This is not an order and I want you to ensure your team is not obligated to stay." She replies. Matthel nods as she continues. "I will need your help though. To ensure that these people already here get through to Concordia we must deactivate the transport obelisk." She finishes that last remark with some difficulty. Disabling the Stargate Central transport obelisk would mean anyone outside the shield will not be able to evacuate via the Gate. With hundreds of people still due to disembark the survival of the few would take priority.

He hesitates slightly as he runs the probability numbers in his head. "We won't have enough time to pull the control crystals in the crystal tray without the transporter activating from elsewhere in the outpost. There is a ten second delay between activations to ensure everyone is safely outside it's radius. Perhaps if we time it right I can damage the transport emitter housed in the azure crystal?" He suggests.

"Sounds reasonable. We must act quickly the internal repair nanites will begin repairs immediately. I'll use the down time to pull the main crystals which in turn will render the obelisk useless.

They move away from the line of people traveling through the gate. Above them they see the bright blue tinged shield, moments later impacts are seen and heard as the first of the darts impact the shield. The ground trembles slightly.

"Quickly!" Rhea says as they pick up their pace to the obelisk.

Specialist Matthew raises his energy rifle and switches its power setting to maximum, he takes aim and waits for the current transport cycle to complete.

"Stand clear of the obelisk!" Rhea orders the newly arrived evacuees.

With precision aim Matthel fires, the bright yellow bolt directly hits the azure crystal. It cracks slightly but is still illuminated. He fires three more shots in quick succession which significantly increases the crack. Rhea jogs to the obelisk and pulls open the crystal tray. She pulls a blue power crystal from its housing then begins pulling several of the clear rectangle control crystals. The dim blue light illuminating from the cracked crystal fades as the crystal trays loses power and dealuminates.

She lets out a controlled breath. She has officially stranded everyone else from evacuation, something that her training had failed to prepare her for. Above her the shield impacts grow rapidly, looking in between the skyscrapers she can see in the horizon beyond the shield, smoke rising. The ground continues to rumble as the impacts become more frequent.

That's when they all feel it, a strong earth quake beneath their feet. In the distance a group of kamikaze darts hit the power generation centre. The fusion cores are immediately destroyed and explode. A blast wave forms and hits the shield, she notices the shields blue colour changing to a dull yellow. She knows that the emitters are about to run out of power.

The evacuees near the Stargate suddenly stop as they are not able to stand, moments later the pavement around the Stargate degrades, and the Stargate tilts backwards. Those that can crawl back do so. The gate falls on its back, dust and debris fly meters into the air.

Looking back at the gate she sees that about thirty people are left to enter the Stargate. She shouts out. "Get through the gate now!" She begins stumbling towards the Stargate, she tries to shout out above the deafening sound. "Jump through, quickly now."

She grabs her communicator and activates it, "Concordia, this is Commander Rhea. The last of the evacuees are coming through, the Stargate has fallen and is in a horizontal position. We are sending three at a time, stand clear of the Stargate. We'll be sending groups of three or four every five seconds. I'll leave my comm line open." She says to her collar mounted communications device.

"Specialist Matthel, I want you to send one of the Defence team members with each group of three." She says.

"The civilians take priority! They must get through first." He replies hesitantly.

"No, I've sacrificed enough people today. You will send one of your team members with each group of three. Thus, making four at a time. I will go through last." She orders.

Matthel orders his team to find three civilians and jump through the gate. "I cannot let you stay behind Commander."

"I have no intention to stay behind." She says, as they stand near the Stargate watching the seven groups of four jump through the downed Stargate. Matthel jumps through, as she stands on the edge of the ring

She mentally commands her comm device to contact the ships in orbit. "The final available evacuees have left. All ships depart immediately for open space." She closes the channel.

She looks around for one final time. "I am so sorry. I have failed every one of you." The shield integratory continues to drop, she hears a loud deafening screeching sound. A dart passes through the shield and impacts a nearby building. Turning around she sees an object flying towards her. A long piece of shrapnel is propelled through the air, as debris begins to rain down. She jumps up to dive through the gate to land on the other side safely as the shrapnel hits her in the abdomen, her entry position changes and she enters the Stargate sideways. She is the last traveller from Galactic Core.

* * *

The self-destruct protocol activates, below the glass tower the six near depleted power modules release a predetermined amount of energy. Most is diverted into subspace, the little that makes it out into the real world immediately brings destruction. The air broils away; as buildings, greenery and surviving Lanteans are completely incinerated. An explosion occurs, it is so strong that a great portion of the land mass is destroyed. Dust, debris and ash are hurled into the atmosphere.

Within days the planet will be rendered uninhabitable.

* * *

Nikal sits in his command chair as he listens to Rhea's last transmission. "Rickard, open a secure channel to the Lantean fleet." He says to the hologram.

"Channel open, Commander." It says.

"Attention all Lantean vessels. I'm assuming command of the fleet, engage your hyperdrives and set the following rendezvous coordinates. Ships that have lost hyperdrive capabilities contact the nearest warship to tow you, Nikal out." Nikal mentally closes the channel via the chair.

"Show me the available hyperspace capable vessels, and the vessels that are not able to make the jump." He says, as the ship rocks as it becomes the main target for the Wraith.

"Several Aurora Class vessels have begun to retreat, it appears their weapons caches are depleted. Those ships are currently in the process of towing the damaged ships out of the battle… The Aurora Class Vessel Caduceus is preparing to depart with two cruiser type vessels in tow. Approximately one third of the Lantean fleet has been destroyed, and seventy percent of the Wraith fleet has been eliminated." Rickard states.

"The Lantean loses will begin to increase as more vessels deplete their drone reserves." Jad states. "We need to leave soon, before we are down to throwing hull plating at them."

"I agree" Nikal states. "Send the following orders to the Lantean ships. 'All ships with available weapons are to use them in a purely defensive manner. We are no longer on the offensive. This system is lost. All ships are to jump or report in to get a tow within the next minute. Nikal out.' Send it"

"Message sent. Twelve ships have responded and are ready to jump. Three ship are not able to jump, we are repositioning to collect the nearest ship. The other two are manoeuvring into tractor range of the other ships." Jad says out loud.

The ship is rocked by more plasma bolt fire from the Wraith. A console towards the front of the bridge begins to spark. Rickard cuts the power to the console. Without warning the ship is hit by a Wraith Cruiser, Nikal is thrown out of the command chair and through the Rickard hologram. Jad grabs the edge of his console for support.

"Rickard full auto fire, starboard plasma cannons, use the tractor beams to deflect the ship away." Nikal says from the floor in pain, as he wonders why the automated avoidance system didn't kick in.

The ship begins to pelt the Wraith ship with plasma fire, as beams shoot out to move the ship away.

"Shield integratory compromised. Shield status thirty-seven percent. Rerouting main generator power to supplement shield strength. Hyperdrive status… hyperdrive online… hyperdrive offline… hyperdrive online. MASTER CAUTION… ma-in AI co-mpu-ter core damaged… comut… cor… repai…" The Rickard hologram disappears, as the lights on the bridge flicker.

Jad begins to furiously type on the control console, being a technician he was now in his element. "There was a power surge in the computer core, the repair systems couldn't reroute around the damage. The hyperdrive keeps dropping in and out, it appears several induction crystals have been damaged. I'm rerouting through secondary relays but the navcon was one of the primary systems tied into hyperdrive control and its down. We can jump to hyperspace but we won't know where we will drop out; or how fast we will be travelling. We won't be able to calculate any of the variables." Jad moves away from the console and helps Nikal up from the ground.

"Thanks." Nikal grunts as Jad helps him back to the control chair. "Inform the fleet. Tell them that if we are not at the rendezvous within a day, that they are to proceed to Concordia at their best speed." As Nikal sits down the chair aluminates blue. He mentally switches off the alarms and activates the repair subroutines. "Hmm I haven't completed the nanite repair system. Ugh."

"Message sent… Captain Cloelia of the Arcus has responded and will take command of the fleet if necessary." Jad says.

Nikal concentrates and brings the hyperdrive online, it's still not stable. Most of his concentration is focused on keeping the hyperdrive from overloading. With the main computer offline, he must regulate every variable on the fly. With a mental order a window in front of the ship opens. The Rickard accelerates quickly into this tear.

In space, several other hyperspace windows open as the last of the Lantean Fleet leaves the Galactic Core system. Another world of the Lantean Domain is lost to the Wraith.

* * *

 **The City Ship Concordia, Maia System, Outskirts of the Pegasus Galaxy.**

The Maia System was the only other known secure system in the Pegasus Galaxy. Its location at the very outskirts of the Pegasus Galaxy far from other habitable systems and way off the beaten track where the Wraith usually prey has thus far ensured that its never been attacked, with the fall of Galactic Core and the abandonment of Atlantis it is the only system left in the Lantean Domain. Maia Prime, the second planet in the system of twelve, commonly referred to as Concordia, is mainly a water world with three large continents and various groups of islands. Due to its distance from the inner planets of the Domain, Concordia was not highly industrialised as Galactic Core was. However, with its highly fertile lands it has served as the food basket for most the Domain, in recent years it has provided humanitarian assistance to worlds decimated by the Wraith. The city ship Concordia was relocated to this world after it was damaged in the early years of the Lantean Wraith War, while its offensive and defensive capabilities remain intact its flight capacity was severely diminished. With repairs delayed time and again with parts and repair time being diverted to the rest of the fleet, Concordia has remained incapable of taking the fight to the Wraith. Its current status is the primary reason it has thus far been spared from destruction as many of its sister cities have faced during the long and brutal war.

* * *

 **Several minutes ago.**

" _Concordia, this is Commander Rhea. The last of the evacuees are coming through, the Stargate has fallen and is in a horizontal position. We are sending three at a time, stand clear of the Stargate. We'll be sending groups of three or four every five seconds. I'll leave my comm line open."_ Commander Rhea says as her transmission is received through the open wormhole.

Administrator Jax of the City Ship Concordia moves from the communications console towards the balcony overlooking the chair platform below. He taps his comm device to speak with the Director of Security in the Gate room at the base of the tower.

"Jax to Kerstra. The Galactic Core Stargate has fallen and is horizontal. Prepare yourselves for injuries." He says into the device.

This particular city ship was designed to house the Stargate at the base of the tower above the underwater gate ship bay. Director Kerstra is assisting the evacuees out of the gate room to one of the city piers to be ferried to the main land, the city ship is already close to capacity.

"Kerstra here, we received the warning. I have my people moving away from the gate as we speak. Medical personnel are on standby." The tall blonde woman replies.

As she finishes, the first group of four come flying through the Stargate. They're propelled by the gravity from jumping through the Stargate at Galactic Core. The group hits the ground approximately five metres away from the event horizon. The medical and security team move towards and quickly pulls them away. As soon as they are moved the second group shoots through and lands in the same area. There are grunts as they hit the ground hard and roll to a stop.

The other groups all travel through they are just waiting for Commander Rhea to arrive. They pick up another transmission from the other side of the wormhole. _"The final available evacuees have left. All ships depart immediately for open space."_ Rhea says over the open channel.

"Alright everyone, the last evacuee is coming through." Kerstra says.

Seconds later Rhea flies through the Stargate and hits the rear wall with such force they hear something crack. Dust and debris starts flooding the gate room, a technician near the dialling device quickly raises the gate shield to prevent anything else from passing through. A medical team quickly run to Rhea's side, they notice the large jagged object in her side.

"We need to get her to the medical bay immediately, she is critical." One medic states.

The wormhole integratory degrades and the Stargate's automatic protocols close the wormhole.

Kerstra orders four security guards to assist the medics in lifting Rhea up onto a floating bed. Rhea is quickly rushed to the medical bay, Kerstra makes her way to the nearest transport booth to report this development to the Administrator.

* * *

"Have we had any success connecting with Galactic Core?" the Administrator asks. The senior staff of the city and outpost are gathered in the conference room.

"Negative sir. The Stargate will not connect, we assume debris from nearby buildings must have buried the gate. We also have to assume the Stargate was destroyed once the self-destruct protocol engaged." Kerstra replies.

"Alright, we will not attempt another connection. How has the transfer of evacuees gone?" He asks aloud.

A senior staffer in the back of the room replies while looking at his computing tablet, "We have moved over ninety percent of the evacuees to the mainland, a further five percent have been transferred to the ships in orbit, and the other five are still in the city. The main land colony is currently stretching itself to its limits. All in all, we have accommodated well in excess of nine thousand evacuees via the gate. We will have to wait and see how many are aboard the ship."

The administrator buts in. "Thank you for bringing that up. The ships, how many have survived the battle so far?" He asks both concerned for the people aboard but also in a logistics capacity.

The same staffer replies to his query. "We are still waiting for a communication from the evacuees, we know that Commander Rhea ordered the assets in orbit to jump to open space, as of yet we don't know where that point is."

Kerstra steps in to clarify some points. "We have been informed from some of the Galactic Core command staff, that Archon Nikal was aboard an experimental starship of his own design. We can assume that he took command of the fleet and is currently at this rendezvous point. It's possible they are still outside subspace communication range, given our position in the galaxy, subspace communications would take hours to reach us. They would have to use the Stargate to contact us for real time communications."

She leans forward and pushes a few buttons on the surface of her table, this brings up a holographic map of the galaxy. "These are the nearest Stargates to Galactic Core…" she pushes another button and the map is overlapped with red dots. "…and these are the Wraith occupied worlds. My point in this is that they have this data and will probably act accordingly. We must wait and find out." She finishes and deactivates the hologram.

"Agreed. In the interim, there is plenty to do." He faces the acting senior medical officer. "Doctor Logan how is Commander Rhea? The report I have here from the Director is that she was grievously injured as she arrived. A Specialist Matthel reported that she was not injured before he stepped through moments before she entered the gate."

The young male doctor seated at the table stands, "She is currently in the medical bay. We are doing everything we possibly can to treat her, but she's sustained severe damage to her internal organs. The Chief Medical Officer is still in surgery with her as we speak trying to remove the debris. We are considering placing her in a Stasis Chamber after surgery, as we do not have the healing technology on base to assist her own healing abilities in the post operative environment. That technology was mainly utilised at Galactic Core or the emergency rooms aboard Atlantis. The healers we have here are not trained to assist someone so grievously injured, which is why I would need the medical tech. I am hoping the evacuating ships might have something in their cargo holds. I apologise for leaving early but I am due to relieve the Chief Medical Officer in the next half hour, so if you excuse me I must leave." Logan says finishing. He nods to the Administrator and promptly leaves the conference room.

A control room technician interrupts the meeting when she runs in, "Excuse the interruption Sir, but we have detected several vessels in hyperspace heading this way. Long range scans confirm that they are Lantean Transport Ships." She finishes. Jax gives her a nod dismissing her, as Kerstra activate the holographic interface once again to show the sensor readings.

"Hail them." Jax says to Kerstra.

She taps a series of buttons on the surface of her table. "Attention unidentified Lantean Vessels. This is the City Concordia, identify yourselves. If you do not respond, your ships will be rendered inert before entering orbit." She sends the hostile challenge to the vessels. With the loss of Atlantis and Galactic Core they are not taking any chances.

"This is the Lantean Transport Vessel Alyssum. Our fleet of vessels were ordered by Commander Rhea to jump from Galactic Core to Concordia." The ship Captain replies on an open channel for the other ships to hear.

"Understood Alyssum. Drop out of hyperspace when in range, and prepare to be boarded by security patrols. Once the security patrols are aboard you will relinquish command of your ship to them, at the completion of their security sweeps you will be reinstated. Once these formal proceedings are complete please forward all crew, passenger, and cargo manifests to the central control tower. Further instructions will be provided from the security teams. Concordia out." Kerstra finishes as she closes the channel.

"That seemed a little harsh for a group of evacuees." Jax states.

"The Wraith were attacking Galactic Core, we don't know if they managed to board those vessels. It's happened countless times before with vessels approaching Atlantis." She replies.

* * *

In outer orbit of Concordia, twelve hyperspace windows open. From these fissures twelve ships are ejected, they come to a quick stop. They deactivate their engines, shields and weapons arrays. Near by a group of shuttles approach the numerous ships. One shuttle is dispatched to dock with each ship, while the others slowly form up around them.

"This is Concordia Shuttle 3-1-7' to Alyssum. Requesting permission to dock." The shuttle operator communicates over subspace.

"Permission granted. Be advised all ship personnel are in crew quarters and evacuees are in cargo bay one. I await your arrival at docking point Alpha. Alyssum out." The Captain replies.

This continues aboard the eleven other transport vessels; each boarding runs smoothly. The security teams quickly access the computer systems to assess for possible tampering, while also searching compartment after compartment for anything dangerous. One group enters the cargo bay and begins the long process of confirming the identity of each evacuee. This process take most of the day but everything checks out.

"Your ship is clear. I apologise Captain, we are a little on edge in regard to what happened. We do not mean any disrespect to you, your crew or the evacuees." The security specialist says with empathy.

"It's fine, with the War over the years it's become a common drill for us. We are trained to remain calm and orderly, it's safer to check everything than fight it." The male captain responds.

The specialist removes a crystal from his uniform. "This contains landing instructions, and data in regard to offloading your passengers to the various settlements. We are running low on space to house the sheer number of evacuees, many will have to be housed aboard the ships but have full access to the surface. But that's a conversation for someone a little higher than me. If you could send your supply manifest to the central tower we can begin distribution to the major settlements on the surface." The Specialist requests.

"Consider it done. There is one item I must make you and your superiors aware of, it was never listed on the manifest as it was the last item brought aboard." The Captain states.

"Please clarify." The specialist was slightly confused.

"We were ordered to take a copy of the Galactic Core Database, its been loaded into an active computer Core which is currently decompressing the data as we speak to make it accessible." She states.

"I can think of a few people who would be interested in it, it'll contain a log of what happened prior to the attack. It will also make confirming identities much easier as we do not have up to date records for other planet populations." The specialist finishes thinking of the possibilities of what it may contain.

The Specialist and his team disembark and head back to the surface, he talks to the other specialists aboard other shuttles. They compare notes for the as he prepares a report for his superiors.

* * *

"Their stories check out." The Specialist informs the governing council of Concordia. "According to them and their computer logs, they were ordered to disembark and head to Concordia and maximum speed. Most of their ships were modified specially to make the trip quicker… they are lucky that they did. Our engineers have combed over their ships since they've landed and found that they wouldn't have made it another ten light years without their engines overloading causing critical damage beyond their onboard repair capabilities."

"Thank you, Specialist. You are dismissed." Director Kerstra orders. The Specialist picks up is computing device and leaves.

Kerstra looks back at the governing council in the conference room. "So, their story checks out, what will we do moving forward, we do not have the resources to cope with a sudden population increase of fifteen thousand. We are running critically low on space to house them till the new residential blocks are built on our main continent. Do we have the power to replicate temporary shelters that can be placed in different townships?"

"We do, the geothermal energy plant was brought online last month. It's been modified to supplement our power reserves here on Concordia. With the minimal excess being used to slowly recharge the power modules. If we use the main industrial synthesiser we could replicate several thousand temporary shelter units. They'd be large enough to house four people comfortably with access to basic needs, it wouldn't be luxurious but it wouldn't be roughing it either." Saral the Director of Science replies.

"Temporary shelters sound viable, it will only be for a few weeks while the new districts are built." Begin replicating them as soon as possible." Administrator Jax orders. "We will reconvene when we receive a significant update in this situation." He gets up and leaves others follow on their way elsewhere.

Jax descends the main staircase, he watches as a man on the Control Chair monitors the long-range sensors for any sign of the fleeing ships. The man notices someone looking so Jax gives him a reassuring smile and a nod to carry on. He walks off to a transport booth he selects the nearest booth to the infirmary, there is someone he needs to see in person.

* * *

Jax walks into the main medical bay to medical staff quietly monitoring patients. Not many people usually utilise the infirmary aboard Concordia as there are not many injuries suffered during day to day operation of a flightless city. Most times the infirmary is in use when patients from the main lands are injured critically and the onshore medical facilities cannot cope with the severity of the injury. Luckily today not too many people were under the expert care of the healers, several citizens from Galactic Core were getting minor scrapes and bruises healed from their rushed evacuation.

He walks by several of the injured, introducing himself and did his best reassuring his Galactic Core brothers and sisters. Making his way deeper into the infirmary he finds the Chief Medical Officer sitting at her desk resting her head on the table top. Jax walks up to her and give her a small jolt on his shoulder, rousing the older doctor.

"Ugh, I must have dozed off." Doctor Amba says.

"Considering what you have been doing for the last fifteen hours I can understand." Jax replies.

"Yes. She is tough." She yawns during her reply. Becoming fully alert she looks at the live stream of the surgery from an operating theatre deeper in the infirmary. "We have spent the last fifteen hours removing the debris from her body…" she taps a few keys and brings up a scan. "As you are the ranking officer on base you are currently privy to this information. The largest piece was the easiest to remove. We analysed the debris and found it to be a fragment of a Wraith Dart. However, as it is organic it appears to have fragmented and attached to her internal organs. Which is the tricky part, we have been trying to remove the fragments but they are attaching to her nervous system to survive."

"What is the treatment? Is there a threat that the fragments will grow into something that could alert the Wraith?" Jax asks concerned.

"The treatment I'm still devising, we are planning to place her into stasis, we cannot work around the clock on this problem, and it will give us the time to analyse further a create a treatment plan. Regarding a possible security risk, I highly doubt it. It appears that the organic tissue was in a type of shock after it was destroyed, its attempting to heal itself but there is so little material left that it cannot grow into anything." Amba answers.

"I will have some technicians look over the primary stasis chamber, would it be easier if we have them bring the chamber here to the infirmary?" He asks.

"That would be ideal, it saves us the travel back and forth. She is in a critical situation, with her immune system disrupted it would be best that she does not leave the environment of the medical bay." Amba states relieved.

"I'll get them on to that immediately. If everything goes to plan it should be installed within three hours." He says confidently, he touches her shoulder. "You should have a good rest while she is in stasis, you'll be no help to her exhausted."

"I know. Thank you, Administrator. If you don't mind I will catch an hour nap then get back in to assist Doctor Logan." She yawns and heads to an empty hospital bed in a private room off the main infirmary area.

Jax leaves and opens a comm line to the Control Room to organise the engineering teams to relocate one of the stasis chambers.

* * *

 **Unknown Location. Deep Space.**

Twenty-two hyperspace windows open in the void between star systems. Exiting these openings between two radically different dimensions are the Lantean Warships and Cruisers, all in different states of damage. Three ships release their tractor beams as the damaged ships begin to drift. Captain Cloelia sits patiently in her command chair for a confirmation sensor sweep.

"Captain, our position appears safe. Twenty-two ships are with us… however the Rickard is not." The sensor operator states.

The Captain stands and moves to the sensor station next to the pilot, she reads the data on the screen. "Understood. Inform the fleet that I have assumed temporary command, please send a request for status reports immediately." She moves back to her seat.

"If the Rickard is not here… then where are they?" The executive officer asks.

"I do not know." She replies.

"Communications, open a subspace channel to Concordia." The captain orders the comm officer.

The comm officer attempts to open a channel. "Apologies Captain, we are not in real time subspace range of Concordia. The War with the Wraith has seen our communications relays destroyed. Our transceiver does not have the capability to send messages that far without assistance." He replies from his seat.

"How about the gate network? Is there a gate nearby that we could use to get in contact?" The executive officer asks aloud, trying to work the problem.

The sensor operator pulls up a hologram of the nearby star systems. "These are the planets within a thousand lightyears of our position." The map changes and highlights blue, "These represent the worlds that have Stargates placed in orbit or on the surface." The map then suddenly changes red. "And this is the Wraith controlled territory as of three weeks ago. There is one gate that is not in their territory that we know of. It is a space gate and its thirty minutes away from here at maximum hyperspace velocity." He alters the hologram to show a world that seemed devoid of life.

The executive officer deduces what the comm officer was planning, "If we send a cruiser and a warship escort we can use one of the ships to piggyback the subspace communication line through the Stargate which would allow real time subspace communications between us here and Concordia. Great thinking Lieutenant". The executive officer nods.

"Alright, I want long range scans of the system before you enter it. If there is even a minimal Wraith presence then I'm scrubbing the mission completely. I must be absolutely clear on this, the Wraith must not know where we are, they know that we survived the fight, but for our continued survival we must not engage them. Being out in the middle of nowhere offers us protection till we are ready to leave for Concordia." She emphasises.

"Lieutenant you will lead this mission, the Executive Officer will accompany you as a representative of this fleet and will be able to provide a detailed account to the Concordia Governing Council, assuming they allow him to enter the city via the gate. Take whoever else you feel would benefit this excursion. I'll assign a Cruiser and three Warships to protect you while in the system." Cloelia says aloud while standing behind a mission briefing table interface.

"Yes Commander. I will be ready to depart within the hour." The comm officer states.

"Good Luck." The Captain wishes, she gives them a curt nod in dismissal. They promptly leave the bridge.

* * *

 **Open space, Unknown Location, Pegasus Galaxy.**

Another hyperspace window opens in the empty space between star systems. From this interdimensional fissure, the prototype warship Rickard is ejected. It doesn't come to a complete stop and begins rotating erratically.

"Hyperdrive has failed. The crystals are fried." Jad says moving from console to console attempting to stabilise the primary systems.

Nikal snaps out of his reverie as the command chair interface fails, disconnecting him from the ships systems. Sparks fly from various consoles as the power regulation system struggles to stabilise.

"Where are we?" Nikal asks as he rises from the chair carefully.

Jad looks back concerned. "I have no idea." He replies


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

 **Unknown Location, Pegasus Galaxy.**

Nikal takes the step down from the command chair's platform and stands behind a nearby console. He starts typing away trying to assess the damage, but with the main computer malfunctioning and the AI Core offline it is close to impossible to get any credible information.

He slams a frustrated fist on the console only to hurt himself in the process. "Ugh this is not good." He says aloud to himself. Looking over he sees Jad still trying to regain control, "Jad are you ok?"

Jad looks back and notes the dazed concerned look, "A little nauseous, I think the inertial dampeners are working overtime. Otherwise I'm fine, you however don't look good, you must have injured at least one of your ribs." Jad looks around the bridge for a medkit. He eventually finds one underneath the science station console. He moves back to Nikal and gets him to sit back in the control chair, opening the kit he looks at its contents. Finding a vile of deep blue liquid, he loads it in an injector. "This is should ease the pain you're experiencing." He touches the injector to his arm, with a small hiss the contents are painlessly injected.

Nikal immediately feels the pain dull away, as the medication begins to assist his own body's healing ability. "Thank you. Before the chair went offline I was trying to stabilise the ship but with the control network in disarray I don't think the command went through."

"If we're in a spin then it explains why the internal dampeners are having trouble negating it. I don't know why the power modules and primary generators have gone offline now we've dropped out. It's only a matter of time before emergency power fails." Jad says.

"It is a safety protocol I wrote into the ships firmware. You see the reactors require constant computer surveillance to prevent anything going wrong. If the main computer were to be taken offline the reactors would go offline as well. Ugh, these problems would have been ironed out during the testing phase. I haven't even installed the repair nanites, so as we speak the damage isn't being repaired; that should have been the first thing I installed." Nikal looks down as he finishes.

"You could not have predicted the events we have faced. This ship should still be weeks away from combat trials. None of this is your fault." Jad tells Nikal.

"I know." He replies.

"Now are you going to sit there feeling sorry for yourself, or are you going to fix it before we end up as goo on that bulkhead?" Jad says in a stern voice.

"I'll fix it." He smiles. "I didn't know you were a motivational speaker." He says laughing.

Nikal gets up and approaches the communication console, he takes the trifold tablet and interfaces it with the console. Tapping a command on the tablet he opens a channel to every other tablet issued to the evacuees.

"Attention all personnel. This is Acting Commander Nikal. We have successfully fled from the Galactic Core System, but as you may have noticed we have incurred severe damage to our systems. To get out of this situation I would ask anyone with engineering and technical expertise to report to the Main Engineering Bay. Those with medical training please report to the Medical Bay to assist the casualties as the automated systems are down. The quicker we repair the ship the quicker we can get under way. Your assistance is needed. Thank you. Nikal out." He closes the broadcast.

"Looks like communications are down, we won't be able to contact the rest of the fleet. But right now, none of that matters." He turns away from the console and faces Jad, "Now, I understand your objections about being the Executive Officer all I ask is you continue as XO till I can find a replacement. If you accept, I would give you the position of Chief Engineer your technical skills would be put to skilful use." Nikal asked sincerely.

Jad takes a moment to think it over, he wouldn't be in charge of command decisions and would still be contributing. "I accept. You know my experience and skills."

"That I do." He says as he moves to the rear of the bridge where a tall briefing table, there are no chairs around it meaning that staff must stand around it. "Now I transported a lot of cargo aboard before we departed Galactic Core." A hologram screen activates on the table as it interfaces with the tablet. "I know that I transported enough blank nanite slurry aboard to supplement the small supply of repair nanites stored with much of the other building supplies in the main hanger bay. If we were to inject the repair nanites into the ships systems then inject the blank nanites, the blank nanites will obtain the programming to become repair nanites." He finishes.

"So, I'll go to the main hanger bay and you to the cargo bay for the nanites?" Jad asks.

"No, I need you running point from the bridge. Once the systems start coming online I'll need you to supervise the repair effort, while I try and get the AI core online." Nikal answers.

"Alright. I'll alert the engineering teams to begin repairs where they deem necessary." Jad says.

"Here is a copy of the ship manifest, its lucky I didn't delete it once I uploaded it to the mainframe." Nikal says. He picks the tablet up and makes a forward swiping motion towards Jad. In Jad's pocket his trifold tablet beeps in response to the upload.

Nikal leaves the bridge and makes his way back to the transport booth, he walks right into the door as it fails to open. Letting out a small frustrated sigh he uses the open tablet to wirelessly interface with the transport door controls. Overriding its protocols for local access the doors slowly slide open. He realises that with the main computer down that he will have to locally override each secure door he happens to come to. Entering the booth, the panel opens and he selects a destination towards the front of the ship.

He rematerialises near hanger bay one, exiting the booth he types a command into the tablet which connects with the hanger bay door to open it well before he walks there. Entering the large door into the bay he makes his way towards the centre of the room, several large containers have been place here full of supplies which were intended to be used to complete the unfinished Rickard. The large containers are placed in such a way that several small corridors have been temporarily created. Consulting with the tablet he soon finds the cargo container he is looking for, placing a hand on the surface of the container it opens. Inside are several shelves full of tools, equipment and supplies. At the back of the container he finds a large clear cube full of silver dust. He breaks the seal on the container, and collects a small sample in a vile. He places the now heavy vile of dense nanite dust on a separate shelf for later and returns to the main container. He types a new command into his tablet, the dust immediately reacts turning into a silver liquid.

He speaks to the tablet. "Activate." A signal is sent to the nanite slurry, which solidifies into a sphere and rolls towards the main door. A console imbedded next to the doorway comes online and the nanite sphere breaks apart as the nanites enter it. The nanotechnology travels along the computing lines seeking out any damage. The lights that were moments ago flickering randomly, slightly stabilise. Glancing down at his tablet he sees that the nanites are quickly progressing to the major areas in the ship. He picks up the vile of inert nanite dust and leaves the hanger bay.

Making his way to one of the many cargo bays he repeats the process with the blank nanites, he places the vile of repair nanites in with the blanks. The data in the repair nanites transfers over to the blanks and they too enter a nearby console, repairing various systems.

He leaves and makes his way to the transporter, he is presently surprised to see the door automatically open for him as he approached. The selection panel opens on the rear wall, with lots of smaller destination icons. Nikal decides to use the verbal function to select his destination.

"Artificial Intelligence Core." He states the location he wants out loud for the transporter to select the closest booth.

Nikal materialises in another booth embedded in a wall along the Main Concourse of the ship. This large corridor spans almost the entire length of the ship. Its located in the centre of the ship and depending on the location is approximately five decks high.

As he steps out of the booth he feels himself tilting to his right. He doesn't feel anything wrong with his battered body. At the same moment, his tablet beeps.

" _This is Jad, everyone hold on to something!"_ The tablet broadcasts.

He grabs the side of the booth just as the inertial dampeners momentarily fail, his grip fails and he hits the wall opposite of the transporter. The dampeners appear to come back to full power, Nikal gets up slowly using the protruding forcefield generator strip as support.

"I have to get the computer back online." He says to himself.

He pathetically attempts to run as his body screams in pain. The doors to the AI core room were large, a label on the door states that only authorised personnel were permitted access to the core room, which at the moment was only Nikal. He waves his hand over the door control, it scans his biosignature, seconds later a chime sounds as the doors slide open.

The lights automatically come on as he approaches the large three-tiered computer core. He notices serious scorch marks near the base of the core. One tray sits open with its crystals shattered. Thinking quickly, he begins repairs. Several dozen crystals are removed from their housings and replaced. He bypasses some of the seriously damaged sections in hopes of bringing even minimal AI processes back online.

A holographic screen appears displaying a message on in a blue box. _*Primary AI core reinitialising. Stand By. *_

In front of Nikal, the three-tiered tower begins to light up; The generic computer voice speaks over the internal com system. ' _Secondary computer core online, operating status ninety percent capacity. Restoring computer control. Primary power generation systems reinitialising.'_

Nikal takes a moment to relax and smile at his small victory, in front of him the Rickard hologram slowly appears.

"Good evening Commander. How may I be of assistance?" It asks curtly.

"Stand by, your memory files should be restored momentarily." Nikal replies.

"Understood…" It pauses, and flickers. "…there seems to be some data corruption in the most recent memory files. A power surge may have caused this." It states with a slight frustrated tone.

"Yes, I assumed so while I repaired the core. Are you able to access the ships systems yet? We need to identify what needs repairing and where." Nikal asks.

"Access to secondary systems is affirmative. Diagnostics began automatically when the core was rebooted. There is no structural damage, several power conduits to the shield and weapon systems have failed due to the sheer amount of energy travelling through it. The nanites have begun to work on repairing them. The hyperdrive however is the most critically damaged. The physical drive units are fine, but there are several crystal trays showing severe damage. The induction crystal does not appear to be in its housing." Rickard states in an orderly manner.

The computer voice states a message, _'Cold Fusion power generator one, ready for start-up.'_

"Proceed with the start-up on generator one." Nikal responds.

Moments later a slight vibration on the deck occurs and is quickly negated by the over worked inertial dampeners.

"Commander, main thrusters now have sufficient power to stabilise the ship. I however am still re-establishing my link to the drive systems." Rickard states.

Nikal moves to one of the consoles, with a few mental commands he opens an audio only channel to the bridge.

"Jad, generator one is online. I think the grid has stabilised enough to attempt to slow the ship rotation. Do you have access to the thrusters?" He asks.

"The pilot station is still offline, stand by, I'll use the commanders chair." He replies. Seconds later the feeling of being stuck in a tumbling elevator stops. "We are at an all stop. Now the computer is online I'll begin to find out where we are, Jad out." The channel closes.

"My program is ready for redeployment. What are my orders?" Rickard asks.

"Return to all locations you were previously projected into. Assist where you can." Nikal says.

He returns to the transport booth, selecting an icon representing engineering he appears at the rear of the ship. Walking out of the booth he is greeted be a large group of people willing to assist in repairs. The Rickard hologram appears next to him.

"I apologise for my tardiness, I had to bring the main computer online to prevent a catastrophe from occurring. I see you all have begun repairs." Nikal says.

An Engineer steps forward, judging from the uniform style he is a senior officer within the technician division. "Yes, we have. Most of the repairs in this section have been only from visual inspection and what the scanning equipment can detect. With the computer now up and running it should be a lot quicker to find and repair. If it is ok with you I would appreciate autonomy to conduct repairs? We would of course keep you and the bridge informed." The officer asks.

"Of course." Nikal answers before continuing. "I have several priorities to attend to and would appreciate if you would take on that responsibility. Report to the XO once preliminary diagnostics have completed. And your name is?" Nikal asks.

"Thank you, sir. Kyal Lieutenant Senior Grade." Kyal replies.

"Excellent, the AI here is fully functional and will be able to assist you with your work. If there are any issues with the engine configuration you can contact me." Nikal ends the conversation with Kyal, and makes an announcement for the assembled group. "I once again would like to thank you for all the work you will be working on." Nikal leaves for the transport booth.

Nikal walks into a scene of chaos. Medics, a few doctors, and a group of civilians scrambling to and fro attending to patients.

"Who is in charge here?" He asks a passer-by.

"I'm not entirely sure, all the doctors are I think. Its been more of a group effort. I'm sorry Archon, there is a child over there who broke his leg and has serious bruising when the inertial dampeners momentarily failed; I need to attend to him." The female in a civilian outfit continues on her way with a handful of supplies.

Looking around he notices someone in a pale blue white uniform indicating their status as a medical officer. He approaches her. "Excuse me, I'm Archon Nikal, the acting commander. I need to talk to the ranking medical officer." He asks in a quieter tone that usual.

"You're looking at her. We are rushed at the moment Acting Commander as you can see." She places a lot of emphasis on 'Acting'. "We have a lot of injured people." She passes him a small rectangular device that heals burnt skin, as she walks to another bed. Nikal keeps up to her pace.

"Alright. I'll come back later for a status update. Is there anything you need?" He asks clearly understanding the situation. They stop at another patient and she moves his arms over his legs and indicates a sweeping action. He activates the device and begins healing the wound.

"Yes. Stasis pods, if there are stasis pods aboard this vessel. We have at least a dozen pilot crews severely injured. There are tools here to heal them but not enough trained personnel to utilise them. If we had access to the stasis pods then we can place them inside and treat them later. Preferably on a one by one basis." She informs him.

"That can be done." He says as he notices an iteration of the Rickard hologram across the room assisting one of the civilians treating an injured person.

"Rickard." He says out loud.

Another hologram appears. "Yes Commander?" It asks.

"Coordinate with the Acting Chief Medical Officer…" He looks at her and raises and eyebrow. She catches the meaning.

"Tragan." She fills in.

"… Tragan. Prepare Stasis Hall One for emergency suspension. Bring pods online and run diagnostics." Nikal ordered.

"Yes Commander." It replies as it disappears.

He looks back at Tragan, and passes the skin regenerator back. "Call for the hologram when you are ready. The internal transport system will move them for you. Here is the location of the Stasis Hall." He says with a reassuring smile. Grabbing the tablet from his pocket he calls the information up and swipes it out towards her pocket. Her tablet emits a small tone to signal that transfer has completed.

She smiles back. "Thank you, Commander. I'll bring a report as soon as I can."

Nikal leaves the medical bay.

Returning to the bridge Nikal sees Jad sitting in the Commander's chair with several hologram screens in front of him. He turns and faces Nikal.

"Sensors and communications should be up soon. Resolution from the sensors is only ten percent but it is on the climb." Jad informs Nikal.

"That's good to hear." He replies.

He is interrupted as klaxons sound as the ship automatically changes to a defence condition. The Rickard hologram immediately appears.

"Unknown object detected directly aft. It doesn't appear to be approaching, however several smaller objects are on an intercept course. I estimate they are on final approach to the hanger bays." Jad reads off one of the screens.

"Time till sensors are fully operational?" Nikal asks as he moves to the weapons console.

"Approximately four minutes. I'm halting the diagnostics, it should cut the time in half." Jad says as figures change on the screens in front of him.

"Sensors will reach an optimum resolution within ninety seconds." Rickard advises.

"Power lines to several dozen plasma turrets are offline. With the other seven generators, still offline there isn't enough power to bring the entire rear weapons array online." He says aloud for the others to consider options. "Have the communications come back online?" He asks.

"Broadcast capabilities are now functioning; the receiver will be online in moments." Jad says.

"Open a channel to the vessel." Nikal orders.

Rickard responds immediately and the channel opens, a chime sounds indicating that it's open.

"Unknown vessel. This the Lantean Warship Rickard. Recall your small craft immediately. If you refuse to comply you will be destroyed." Nikal says with a tone of confidence even though he knew that he was bluffing.

Static fills the bridge before a response comes through.

"Please tell me you didn't forget about us Rickard? Thanks for the lift by the way." A screen appears in front of the trio, with an image of a Lantean Captain.

Nikal lets out a sigh of relief at recognising the voice. "I am terribly sorry Captain. After returning to normal space we had to deal with some major repairs." Nikal informs him, he enters a sequence into the weapons console ending the defence condition.

"So, did we. Primary systems over here are still coming back up. That was a nasty rotation your ship was in. I would have assisted but our tractor emitters were hit. We sent the small craft once your ship appeared to stabilise, we tried on several occasions to open communications but assumed rightly that your comm system was down. If you don't mind letting my flight teams to land we can begin discussing our next move." The Captain asks.

"Yes of course." Nikal says.

Looking to Jad and Rickard, "Open the bays and allow them aboard." He orders.

"I shall compile a report of our situation and meet with your senior advisor." Nikal says back towards the screen.

"Alright, I'm going to bring the Triton just off your port quarter. It should make transportation easier. Triton out." The Triton Captain finishes, the screen disappears.

"Executive Officer Jad, I recommend that you resume regular breathing patterns or else you will suffer from respiratory problems." The Rickard hologram states to Jad.

Jad looks at it then realises that he had been holding his breath expecting another Wraith assault. He lets out the breath he was holding in, and inhales deeply. "Thanks." He replies.

* * *

 **Omicron-584 Star System, Several hundred lightyears from Galactic Core.**

Three hyperspace windows open, a Lantean Cruiser and its two Warship escorts drop out. Lieutenant Maxus the Mission Commander stands in front of the main viewing window of the Cruiser's bridge.

"Full sensor scan, system wide." He orders the bridge crew.

"Sensor scan initiated." The sensor operator states.

Sitting in the command chair is Maxus' superior officer, Etan, who is acting as the representative of the Galactic Core Lantean Fleet. The Subcommander looks around helplessly as he isn't currently in command.

"Sensor scans complete. No artificial emissions detected, no ships within range detected. Twelve planetary bodies detected, four appear within the habitable zone. The Stargate is in geosynchronous orbit above the fifth planet." The sensor operator reports.

"Set course for the fifth planet. Perform a short hyperspace jump." Etan ordered.

Maxus turns back to him with an inquisitive look. The Etan realises what he did without thought. "Sorry, it's a habit when you're in this chair." He gets up and moves to the window with Maxus.

"Inform the Warships, and preform the jump." Maxus orders. It's not every day he gets to command a fleet.

"The Warships have acknowledged." A Communications officer reports.

The pilot taps a few commands into the console in front of him, holding the controls in his hands he sends a mental command to the hyperdrive to activate. "Transitioning to hyperspace." The pilot states.

Maxus and Etan face the window and watch the hyperspace window open as they rapidly accelerate into the tear. The darkness of space is replaced with an enormous corridor of blue light of varying tones. Seconds later the corridor appears to suddenly end as they rapidly approach a dark tear, they transition back to normal space. A large brown planet fills the forward windows, it appears to be habitable but barely as most of the planet from orbit appears to be desert.

"The Stargate is directly ahead. We are in range for remote dial out." The sensor operator states.

"Alright." Maxus says. He moves towards the communications console, he grabs an inset handle and pulls out an extension to the console. He begins touching the symbols on the small dialling device, its interface being a smaller version of the indoors version of the dialling device used in Lantean bases. He touches the centre button and the ship send out the remote dialling sequence.

"Stargate active. Stable connection." The comm officer reports.

"Send a communications request to Concordia." Maxus ordered. The comm officer nods as a chime sounds indicating an open channel.

"Concordia base. This is Lieutenant Maxus of the starship Arcus, please respond." He says.

The bridge falls silent as everyone waits for a reply. Moments later a response comes through the bridge speakers. _"Arcus this is Concordia. It's good to finally hear from the fleet. I'm patching your comm signal through to the Administrator. Please standby."_

"Thank you." The comm signal closes for a moment.

A holographic screen appears in front of the window, Administrator Jax appears.

" _Lieutenant Maxus, I'm Administrator Jax. I am absolutely pleased to finally have an open communications channel to your fleet. What is your situation?"_ Jax asks.

"I am glad we were able to open this line of communication as well. I'm currently acting as Mission Commander on our little expedition. We were ordered by Captain Cloelia to open a line of communication with you as the fleet is currently positioned well outside real-time subspace communications range. So, a small contingent of ships under my command has jumped to the Omicron-584 Star System to utilise its space gate. This is Subcommander Etan, the Executive Officer of the Arcus, he is willing to travel to Concordia via gate ship to apprise you and the Concordia Leadership, of the situation." Maxus informed.

" _I see. I will need to advise my Security Director of this request. I only request that you stay within range of the Stargate to keep the communications line open. May I ask if Archon Nikal survived the exodus? We have been informed that he has a prototype Warship at his disposal and was in charge of the fleet."_ Jax asks.

Maxus looks to Etan who answers the question. "Archon Nikal's ship was rammed by a Wraith cruiser during the fight. It survived but from the communique we received from his ship, it sounded like it caused some serious damage to their hyperdrive. Command of the fleet was then to be transferred to Captain Cloelia in the event that his ship did not arrive at the rendezvous point. Which at this moment still has not arrived." Etan recalls.

" _I see, well all we can do is hope that he did jump to safety and is simply lost somewhere_." Jax says offering a reassuring smile.

"Yes Administrator. We will contact you again within the hour, I will update the fleet that we have made a connection and to begin preparations for departure to Concordia. Maxus out." Maxus finishes, he nods to the comm officer who closes the channel.

Etan lets out a breath and looks at Maxus. "Do you want me to inform Cloelia?"

"Yes." Maxus replies, he returns to the bridge control chair and rotates around to the sensor officer. "Once the Stargate automatic shutdown activates, dial back immediately."

"Yes sir." The officer replies.

* * *

Nikal sits quietly working at his desk in what would be his office aboard the Rickard. He looks around at he the bare walls. Not a single item in this room shows any of Nikal personality or interests. Everything he owned was incinerated in his office back on Galactic Core, well almost everything. He digs into his bag that still holds the crystals containing the Atlantis Database, he pulls out a small dual cylinder device. He pulls it open to reveal a holographic image of himself with Joja, they're holding each other in a close hug while laughing. He remembers the day vividly, it was the day they graduated from the Doranda Educational Centre. He graduated from the sci-ops annex and she graduated from the defence annex, they knew each other as a 'friend of a friend' going in and became best of friends leaving. He places the image down on the table, looking around the room which was rather sparse, empty lounge area, no conference table. He only had the desk he was sitting at because he transported it from one of the complete science labs. He looks again at the image and is grateful for what he has, he can't go back to Doranda after the Arcturus Device and the subsequent Wraith orbital strike had rendered it a post-apocalyptic waste land.

"Rickard. Access the records from Galactic Core and cross reference with everyone currently aboard." Nikal orders the hologram standing in the centre of the room.

"Cross referencing complete." It replies.

"Locate an individual who served in the defence force. Her name is Joja, is she aboard this vessel?" He asks.

"Negative. Lieutenant Joja is not aboard this vessel. Last know location was aboard Defence Shuttle 8-3-6, sensors lost contact with that vessel when we attempted to prevent a strafing run by the Wraith Darts." It states.

His only hope is that Joja made it aboard another vessel, because he would never be able to return to Galactic Core if she was left behind.

"Diagnostic analysis complete. Compiling report." Rickard states crisply.

"Once the report is compiled, synthesise reading tablets and copy the reports to them. It'll be easier for whoever is sent from the Triton." Nikal says.

"They will be in the primary conference room. Is there anything else you require?" It asks with some compassion in its tone.

"No not at the moment. Thanks." Nikal replies. The hologram nods and disappears. He rotates around on his floating chair and looks outside the view port. _'Where are we?'_ He thinks. Outside is mostly void space and what appears to be a nebula.

A holographic screen in front of his table shows the status of the small craft arriving from the Triton, it shows them powering down in the hanger bay. He leaves to get to the conference room.

In the hanger bay Rickard materialises and awaits the arriving shuttle crews to disembark. The rear doors of the shuttles open and a short ramp descends. He moves towards the ranking officer. "Greetings and welcome aboard the Rickard. I am this ships' visual representation of the artificial consciousness, I have been sent by Commander Nikal to escort you all to the conference room." It states.

"Commander is it now? Well he always did enjoy titles." The woman replies.

"I apologise, I do not understand." It says with confusion.

"Never mind." She laughs it off before getting back to business. "We have brought over a few medics, some supplies and several technicians with us. We were not sure of your current staffing condition."

"I am sure Commander Nikal would approve of the Triton's generous help." It says, as three other Rickard holograms appear.

One of the other holograms speaks, its uniform is slightly altered to appear as a medical officer. "If the medical personnel would follow me I will show them to the medical bay." It offers a smile and begins to slowly walk towards the door. The lead officer nods her head to medics and they leave the hanger with it.

"The technicians can follow me to Main Engineering, Lieutenant Kyal is currently in charge of that section." Another Rickard states, its uniform altered to appear as an engineering officer. The lead officer once again nods to them and they leave.

"I will handle the supplies." The final duplicate hologram states, "I have highlighted the path to the closest storage room." The floor below them aluminates with a blue line. Six of the officer's return to the shuttle and begin to unload supplies.

"Commander Nikal is awaiting you in the conference room, if you would please follow me." It states to the female officer.

"Of course." She replies lifting an arm indicating that the hologram should take the lead. "I don't think I've ever seen a computing system quite as advanced as you Rickard. No other outpost, base or ship has a system quite like it." She says, as they enter a transport booth.

"I am unique, it is because of my program that managing a ship of this size is possible." It states as they are transported towards the front of the ship. "Countless variables must be considered in day to day operations. I'm currently assisting with repairs in engineering, instructing several people in the medical bay with basic medical aid, and I'm in the process of reinitialising the other seven cold fusion power plants." It replies, they begin the short walk to the conference room.

"I see. This ship is certainly a masterpiece in itself. I only ever got to see it from a distance, my quarters at Galactic Core were in one of the defence force towers in the city. I was lucky with my rank to receive a room that was above most of the skyline so I got a decent view out over the horizon. On a clear day, I could see the construction berth where this ship was being constructed." She lets out a small sigh, "Nikal always promised to take me over to see the construction, but we were always busy. If he was working on the ship I was out on assignment, if I was back then he'd be off world assisting the various Domain worlds in dismantling and destroying any at risk technologies before the Wraith would arrive to decimate those worlds." She says, the hologram simply nods.

"He has been looking for you, aboard this ship that is. My records showed you aboard a shuttle above Galactic Core we lost sensor contact while performing an atmospheric entry." Rickard tells her.

She nods and lets a small smile form, they enter the conference room. This brightly lit space was vast with one large table with eight chairs on either side. A large window gives the conference room an impressive view of space. She sees a large colourful nebula nearby.

Rickard announces to Nikal and Jad who are seated at the head of the table, "Lieutenant Joja, Senior representative of the Warship Triton."

Nikal looks up and his face changes from one focused on work, to one filled with relief and love. He quickly gets up and walks through a holographic screen, he jogs the length of the table. Opening his arms, he grabs her in a huge pick up hug. "I thought I lost you, that you were left behind." He tells her as a tear runs down his cheek, letting her out of the tight hug he walks her towards the head of the table where several tablets computers are placed.

Joja takes a seat and begins recalling her escape from Galactic Core. "It was hectic while I was in orbit. I received your recall order and was on my way, but I was block by a group of Wraith Darts. With my clocking system offline and shields none existent I honestly thought that I was a goner. I watched as your ship fell through the atmosphere, I honestly thought you lost control. I sat there waiting for one of the Wraith Darts to shoot me down, next thing I see is a stream of drones heading for my ship; I banked hard and knowing the Wraith wouldn't have given up the chase so easily. They were destroyed but my flight systems began to fail, turns out it was the Triton that fired them, they towed my ship into their bay and I've been helping them since. Shortly after I was saved we lost our hyperspace capabilities and were ready to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good, we picked up the sensor readings indicating a power module release on the surface and your message telling us to jump. I convinced our Captain to position itself close to the Rickard hoping that you would be able to tractor us and jump to hyperspace. Which then brings us to all that's happened now." She finished as her voice begins to crack. She reaches for a nearby pitcher of water and pours a glass.

"I am glad you are here." Nikal says as he gives her arm a gentle squeeze.

Jad smiles at them seeing some happiness while enduring this hellish experience, he doesn't want to interrupt their reunion but knows that their lives may depend on quick action. He fakes a small cough to get their attention. "If we can get back to the matter in hand." He says as he slides a tablet computer towards her. "This is a short report on our current situation. It contains the current repair status, personnel count, injury count, and unfortunately death count."

Joja looks up from the tablet, "Death count. Already?"

"Unfortunately, yes. we took aboard a lot of shuttle crews. Many were injured in their ships and by the time we got them to the medical bay it was too late. Also, our inertial dampening system momentarily failed earlier, approximately fifteen people passed away when they were thrown about." He reports.

"There will be time to mourn them later. We are in dire need to get a message to the fleet, Jad have you worked out where we are?" Nikal asks.

"Yes, and I do not think you're going to like it." He pulls up a star map. "I ran a scan to find stars that correspond to known configurations in our database, as is standard practice. However, I couldn't find any matches, so I moved on to astronomical phenomena. This is the local space around us." The star map disappears as a hologram of the Rickard appears. It shows the ship sitting in the middle of nowhere. It zooms out to show a nearby nebula before once showing the entire Pegasus Galaxy. "We appear to be on the outskirts of Pegasus, and I would use the term outskirts sparingly, I really mean technically we are outside the galaxy. I'm surprised there is even a nebula nearby when there shouldn't be anything out here." Jad informs the trio.

"This ship was never designed to travel this far that quickly. We were only in hyperspace for, what ten minutes?" Nikal says. As a highlighted path appears on the map showing their embarkation point to their destination. Nikal moves to stand near the holographic map.

Jad gets up and joins him, "My guess is as good as yours. I'm not an expert in hyperspace mechanics. I can only assume the reason we travelled so far and so quickly is because of the sheer amount of power the hyperdrive utilised."

"There are safety limits though." Nikal starts running numbers through his head trying to make sense of this. "But I was manually adjusting on the fly after we lost primary computer control. We must have pushed the Rickard into a deeper level of hyperspace." Nikal thinks aloud.

"Rickard, open a holographic screen and show the current power levels in all three Potentia modules." Jad says to the hologram standing at the end of the table.

It nods and creates the screen it shows three columns with various values. "Potentia Alpha charge, fifty-two percent. Potentia Beta charge, fifty percent. Potentia Delta charge, sixty-seven percent." It states aloud.

"They were brand new modules, at take-off they were all one hundred percent. This would explain why the power generators are offline." Nikal ponders.

Joja also joins them and raises a new concern, "The Triton is an Aurora Class ship, it only has an interstellar hyperdrive. It would take months at its highest speed to reach the rendezvous point or even to get to Concordia."

"I've considered that, my only recommendation is that we set course to the nearby nebula, our ships should make it there assuming we can patch the hyperdrives for a short burst. Now, I've consulted the ship database and the nebula doesn't appear to have been fully explored, however there is a reference to a Stargate possibly being placed on the surface of a world somewhere in there." Jad informs the others. The star map disappears and is replaced with a representation of the nearby nebula. The blue lights dim and brighten indicating that it's a live feed from the sensors.

"That doesn't make very much sense, unexplored but has a Stargate? If there is a Stargate surely there's preliminary data about the planet. The early Lantean explorers were very picky where they placed gates." Joja asks.

"I completely understand your confusion. This ship had a copy of the entire Galactic Core Archive, it automatically updated each time it synced to the central node, so it's as up to date as possible. We have access to every piece of publicly accessible data and there is simply no information. I had Rickard access the Triton computer, its database also doesn't contain anything remotely helpful." Jad replies.

"I have a copy of the Atlantis Database. We could use it to retrieve the data." Nikal tells them.

They both look at him shocked. "How do you have a copy of the Atlantis Database?" Jad asks.

"I may have borrowed a copy…" He starts, Joja raises an inquisitive eyebrow. "…After I was informed that they were going to evacuate this galaxy I decided to make a copy to bring to Galactic Core where I was planning on staying to fight the Wraith, or at least help the human populations. Its currently sitting in my office down the hall." He answers. "There may be at least some data on this nebula, I know the former leaders were very good at redacting and hiding substantial portions of the database from public view. If we get Rickard to scan the copy I have we may be able to force open everything." He finishes.

"Sounds like a plan. I assume it would take hours to decompress the sheer amount of information that you took. It would probably be best if we began to head towards the nebula as soon as possible. Once we are there we can begin the search for the Stargate while we wait." Jad suggests.

"As representative of the Triton I agree with the suggestion, the Captain will support it. I believe our hyperdrive will make the jump. Will yours?" Joja asks.

"The induction crystal was shattered in the last jump. I could fabricate a new crystal but I will need to discuss it with the acting senior engineer." Nikal replies. "I'm going to head down there, feel free to use this room as your temp office if you like. Bring your Captain up to speed on the situation." Nikal nods that the meeting is over and leaves.

Nikal arrives in Main Engineering to a buzz of activity. In the centre of the room is a large circular holotable with various damage reports shown. Most of them are green indicating that the particular issue has been resolved, however three appear red. Lieutenant Kyal is standing near the holotable reviewing reports and directing nearby staff. He sees Nikal and quickly dismisses the nearby staff.

"Commander. Good news we have repaired several systems, fusion reactors two through eight are about to come online. We just need your biometric authorisation." He informs Nikal with a clear sign of relief.

"System. Initiate fusion reactors two through eight. Activate on my authorisation." Nikal says aloud for the computer to pick up.

' _Authorisation acknowledged. Consecutive reactor activation in progress.'_ The Computer states in a dull voice.

"Reactor two is coming online. With the extra power, we can relieve some of the pressure from the power modules." Kyal informs while reading power usage.

"Yes, that would be great. We need to conserve them from now on. Now, I've come down to assist with the hyperdrive. I know that the induction crystal needs to be replaced." Nikal says.

"Yeah, the induction crystal is toast. When it fragged it took several other crystals within the tray with it." Kyal responds. They walk over to a nearby table with four pieces of cloth, atop the cloth are four shattered control crystals. "I don't know if these can be synthesised, I looked in the database but could not find anything remotely similar to these crystals." Kyal continued.

"That data is kept in a secure portion of the database, you would need special authorisation. I can synthesise the crystals. But is the tray still intact or will they need to be replaced as well?" He answers and asks.

"The tray has been repaired, we won't know till the new crystals are placed in whether they will function at full capacity." Kyal raises the concern.

"Alright, I'll create the new crystals and be back in a few minutes." Nikal nods and moves off to a different room in the engineering section.

Entering a large room, the lights come on automatically as it senses his presence. He walks towards a terminal facing the centre of the room. With a few commands, he opens the stored pattern for the crystals he requires, they are loaded into the synthesiser and he activates the device. A light appears as the synthesiser creates matter from energy. Moments later four crystals lay on the large flat creation table. Nikal collects these and returns to Main Engineering. He follows Kyal to the hyperdrive control junction and replaces the crystals himself, the panel lights up and a diagnostic screen appears with data streaming rapidly.

"We are almost back to full functioning capacity. Thank you, Lieutenant." Nikal says as he pats Kyal on his back.

"Anytime. If you don't mind me asking, but some people have raise concerns about where we are, where we are going and what their futures are going to hold. Should I say anything or will we have some large group meeting?" Kyal asks sincerely.

"That's a good question, we are in a bit of a predicament at the moment. I don't want anyone to feel left out of the loop, I'll make an announcement very soon, that's all you tell them." Nikal responds.

"Alright, I'll send some of the workers back to the mess for a break." Kyal says.

"Clever idea." Nikal says as his stomach betrays him and lets out a loud rumble. "I think I'll be joining them." He says as they laugh.

* * *

 **The Arcus, Deep Space, several hundred light years from Galactic Core.**

"… _they're currently deciding whether to let me travel to Concordia. But considering we have almost reached the twenty-four-hour deadline to wait for Nikal I would be recommending that we begin preparations to travel to Concordia."_ Subcommander Etan says over the holographic screen.

Captain Cloelia leans back on her chair in her office, facing the screen she replies. "I was considering that as well. "We have been running inventory and collecting the statuses of the various ships here. Some ships are in far better shape than others, two have already been designated unsalvageable, they are currently being evacuated of all unnecessary personnel and anything worth keeping is being evaluated." Cloelia finishes.

" _That seems like the right course of action, it would take us weeks to tow the ships to Concordia. My only concern is that is it wise to be conducting that type of work in deep space? I know that you're sitting at a random spot in space, but what if the Wraith decide to perform a hyperspace break nearby. It'll be hard to defend such a position with minimal armaments left it would not be wise." Etan says with a concerned voice._

Cloelia stands up from her chair and leans on the corner of her table. "Where else can we do this work then? We can't just leave those ships behind and intact to fall into anyone's hands." She replies a little annoyed that he should be thinking this through.

Etan sees the change in her posture and knows that she wants an explanation to his thinking. _"I've been going through the star charts for this area of space. The Asuras system is roughly twenty-two hundred light years from here on a heading that would take us to Concordia. Now before you say anything, I know it's a quarantined system but it's one the Wraith have never visited because there have never been human populations anywhere in that sector of space. We can complete the deconstruction work in system and then dump the space frames somewhere in system, or put them on a collision course with the systems star."_ He explains.

"It would be safer if we detonate the ships, your plan to just evacuate and dismantle would still leave components behind." She responded to his reasoning.

" _I highly doubt we want to detonate the ships Potentia modules now that they are going to be hard to come by. And who knows when we will be able to collect additional reactants for our power generators, so detonating the reactors would be a tremendous waste of fuel. So yes, I acknowledge that it's possible that we will be leaving behind ships that could be studied by anyone, but we need to change the way we think. The components aboard those ships will come in use down the track." He finishes making his point._

"I see that your argument is valid. We will begin preparations to leave for the Asuras System, inform Concordia that that's where we will be in the mean time. I would recommend that you pick up the Stargate from orbit to bring with you. I don't believe the gate on Asuras is still there. I estimate we will depart within the hour, so it would be best if your splinter fleet meet us in System. My communications officer will send an encrypted communique with exact coordinates." Cloelia says.

" _Understood Captain. See you in two days. Etan out."_ Etan finishes, his image disappears from the screen. The holographic screen deactivates.

Cloelia touches a button on her desk, "Cloelia to the bridge." She says.

"Yes Captain." A response comes through the internal communications system.

"Set course for the Asuras System, inform the fleet to prepare. I expect to be underway within the hour." She informs the bridge office. "Cloelia out." She touches the button again and closes the channel.

* * *

 **The Void, Outskirts of Pegasus.**

"Hyperdrive is operating within normal tolerances, full system diagnostic complete." Rickard reports to the group on the Bridge.

"Understood. Joja, how is the Triton fairing." Nikal responds and asks from the command chair.

"They are reporting some faults in their drive systems. But I've been reassured that they have created a patch that will hold for the short trip to the nebula." She replies.

"Excellent." Nikal says to the news.

Jad stands behind a control console near the command chair, he is busy typing on the interface as three holographic screens surround him with complex information scrolling quickly. "The crystals containing the Atlantis Database has been loaded into memory, and the computer is decompressing as fast as possible." Jad informs them.

"My program is attempting to isolate the specific data as it is decompressed as well as attempting to circumnavigate varying levels of encryption. The data I have already been able to access appears to be heavily encrypted. I have had to limit the number of duplicate instances I can project throughout the ship to dedicate computing power to this endeavour." Rickard adds.

"I understand." Nikal nods. "I guess we better get under way. Please inform the Triton that we are ready, we'll jump as soon as they have." Nikal says to Joja.

Joja moves to the communications console and transmits a message to the Triton, "They acknowledge."

The trio watch out of the forward viewing windows as the Aurora class ship moves past them, seconds later a hyperspace window opens and the ship disappears. A holographic screen appears with detailed subspace scans.

"The Triton has successfully transitioned to hyperspace." Rickard informs them.

Nikal closes his eyes and concentrates, the bridge lighting dims slightly as blue crystals imbedded in his chair aluminate. He slips into the reverie, induced by an occupant entering the digital computing realm. He sees everything the ship does, the near by nebula, the Pegasus Galaxy and bright lights out in the void. He focuses back and thinks about the hyperdrive. He feels the system requesting power, so he opens the flood gates near the power reserves to open, the energy is routed to the engines. He finds the coordinates in the navigation database and the orders the ship to jump to hyperspace.

In front of the Rickard a large tear opens and the ship jumps away.


End file.
